SHULGOLD: Raising the curtain on legend of Nureyev

Published August 25, 2007 at midnight

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The remarkable life of Russian ballet star Rudolf Nureyev turned dramatically in a crowning moment in 1961, when he defected to the West at an airport near Paris.

For Soviet authorities, that daring leap made Nureyev a nonperson in his homeland. Conversely, to those outside the U.S.S.R., this enigmatic, magnetic artist arrived with no past, seemingly new-born and fully formed.

Such was the era of the Iron Curtain, when life in the Soviet Union remained all but unknown to outsiders. Coincidentally, 1961 was also the year the Berlin Wall was erected.

There will remain clouds of mystery surrounding Nureyev (many created and nurtured by the man himself), but thanks to an engrossing documentary presented on Rocky Mountain PBS, a clearer picture of the making of his legend emerges.

Nureyev: The Russian Years takes us inside the hidden Soviet world, through rare archival footage, insightful contemporary interviews with former friends and colleagues and gorgeous views of modern-day Leningrad.

Skillfully written and directed by John Bridcut, this program adds missing pieces to the puzzle that was Nureyev. His arrogance, we learn, was there from the start. A classmate recalls how this brash young student arrived at the Kirov school and announced he would become "the No. 1 dancer in the world." True enough, but back then, off-putting.

The diva-like behavior integral to Nureyev's persona was also in full bloom from the beginning. His early dance partner, Ninel Kurgapkina, here seen as a twinkly-eyed, lovely older woman, can smile now about Nureyev's infuriating excesses. She recalls how he held up a performance for over an hour because he refused to wear baggy pants, insisting on tights.

There are a few hardly revelatory interview clips with Nureyev. At the start of the documentary we glimpse his complexities in the mixed expressions he shows during a post-defection meeting with the press, where he doesn't (or can't) respond to a single query. Purposely elusive? Maybe, maybe not.

Almost as melodramatic as the man were his amorous relationships. We learn of his dangerous liaisons with the wife of legendary ballet teacher Alexander Pushkin, his platonic love for the Cuban dancer Menia Martinez and his affair with a student from Berlin named Teja Kremke, a handsome young man who shot home movies of his lover onstage and off, leaving an invaluable record of Nureyev's early brilliance and quirky personality.

Kremke inspired that chaotic, headline-making defection, re-created here by choreographer Pierre Lacotte in the former Le Bourget Airport terminal, now an air museum.

In addition to the movies shot by Kremke (who, the program notes in passing, later committed suicide in East Germany), we see performance footage of Nureyev, clips limited mostly to barrel turns and blindingly fast pirouettes. There are glimpses of his partnering prowess, including early work with Margot Fonteyn, with whom he would later conquer the ballet world.

Nureyev's flamboyance out of the spotlight is discussed by two friends, Liuba and Leonid Romankov. They provide a reminder that in the dark post-Stalinist days, intellectuals managed to keep alive their curiosity and passion for the arts, albeit in secret.

All those reminiscences help us understand the decision to defect. Nureyev (1938-1993) was not the first Russian artist to leave his homeland. It was the drama and timing of his escape at the height of the Cold War that captured the world's attention.

For me, The Russian Years stirred memories of other defections in the three decades after Nureyev. We have read of the anguish of such masters as Shostakovich, who chose to remain in Russia. We know of failed attempts by those hoping for sanctuary in the West. Pianist Alexander Toradze once told me of a conductor who tried to defect but whose request was denied, leading to his suicide.

The saga left me with a sense of sadness, for Russians who saw the flowering and then inevitable escape of so many brilliant artists and for a world that too often mistreats or misunderstands creative people who march (or dance) to a different drummer.

Like a fragile flower, great art must be allowed to unfold and grow in its own manner. Such is the lesson of Rudolf Nureyev.

Famous Soviet defectors

• Dancers: George Balanchine, Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia Makarova, Alexander Godunov, Leonid Kozlov and Valentina Koz- lova, Mikhail Baryshnikov

• Musicians: Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Feltsman, Alexander Toradze, Viktoria Mullova

• Others: Svetlana Alliluyeva (Stalin's daughter), Viktor Korchnoy (chess grandmaster), Andrei Tarkovsky (film director), Anatoly Kuznetsov (author)

On TV

• What: Nureyev: The Russian Years, a trip inside the dancer's early years

• When, where: 9 p.m. Wednesday, Rocky Mountain PBS (KRMA-Channel 6)

Marc Shulgold is the music and dance writer. Shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5296

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