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Fonteyn and Nureyev: The Great Years
Keith Money
Manufacturer: Harvill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0002713756 |
Customer Reviews:
thanks for a great buy.......2005-11-10
I received the book in a timely manner, and it was in wonderful shape!
Customer Reviews:
Dancing On His Own Grave.......2006-07-25
I had the pleasure of seeing him dance in London with Dame Margot in 'Swan Lake' in 1970. I even got someone who worked backstage to ask him to sign my program. Which he did. The heavyset lighting man chuckled as he returned the program to me. Here Luv, he said. Rudolph signed this for ya. I told 'em you were pretty and Rudy said; All my fans are pretty. Boys and girls. Wow! Talk about memories! To love him and his dancing as I did all those years, and then watch him slowly waste away was heartbreaking to me. This book opened a door on Nureyev I never knew about. His sexual addition. Had AIDS not come about, he would still be with us. There are reasons why there are rules in life. When you cast them to the wind, you reap the whirlwind. You cannot live like he did and not have repercussions one way or another. A wonderful book. A sad ending for such a magnificent man.
The Best Biography to Date on the Public and Privates Lives of R.N........2006-07-16
Because I referred readers to this book in my lukewarm review of the recently published THE REAL NUREYEV by Caroline Soutar, I would like to add here that I concur wholeheartedly with the points made in L. Shirley's review. That Stuart writes about dance for many premier publications did not surprise me; what did was that this was his first book. I've read all biographies published about Nureyev since his death, and Stuart's remains the best in terms of giving readers an in-depth and revealing-but-not-salacious portrait of Nureyev in well-written prose.
Compelling Read...Fascinating Story.......2006-02-07
"Perpetual Motion: The Public and Private Lives of Rudolf Nureyev" by Otis Stuart is a book well-named. Stuart gives us a look into this incredible life from birth to death, in what seemed to be a non-stop whirlwind of life. Nothing about Nureyev was ordinary. Born of all places, on a train, changing the world's view of ballet while performing brilliantly,his dramatic defection from Russia, and even continuing to contribute to the world of dance during the years he struggled with AIDS, up to the time of his death.
Mr. Stuart's account of this extraordinary life, seems to be very well researched. He brings to the reader a most compelling look at the fascinating life and loves of Nureyev, and tells his story from the point of great admiration. He explores all the many sides and layers of Nureyev.The almost super-human like engery, his passion for both the dance and his partners, both professionally and personally(an entire chapter is devoted soley to Margot Fonteyn), and we also see a more vulnerable side as well.
Reading the Author's descriptions of the performances, and reading this wonderfully up close and personal look at the life of this amazingly talented person, left me wanting to buy some of the DVDs with his dance.There is a section of some great pix included as well. I would recommend this biography to any fan of Nureyev or ballet.
Enjoy the read....Laurie
Well-written bio of a wild man.......1997-09-13
Well, I don't care if it was hastily put together, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. As a long-time Rudi fan, I was pleased to reminisce, and I even learned some new facts. I also gained a new respect for everything Nureyev did for dance, and for the plight of the male dancer.
Mr. Stuart has a fun writing style that was quite appropriate for his subject. I particularly liked his description of the job of a male dancer! ..."tote that swan, lift the sylph"! How true. I also laughed out loud at his descriptions of some of the more notorious melees Rudi got into (or created). The fight at the beach, which ended up partially a food fight, was very entertainingly described ("The hills were alive with marinara!").
I think this is a good introduction to Nureyev's life, and I respected and appreciated Mr. Stuart's frankness about Rudi's sexual persuasion and private life. It could have had more pictures of Rudi in flight (dancing). Lord knows, there are enough around!
Amazon.com
From the moment of his birth aboard a train speeding through Stalinist Russia, until his death of AIDS in 1993, Rudolf Nureyev seemed to travel through life at the velocity of a triple pirouette. His professional accomplishments are stunning. Despite starting his ballet training much later most dancers, Nureyev won a coveted spot at the famous Maryinsky (later the Kirov) ballet school in St. Petersburg and went on to become one of the company's favorite dancers. By the end of his first year in the West--in 1961 he became the first Soviet dancer to defect when he stayed in Paris after the rest of the Kirov returned to the U.S.S.R--he had performed with the major ballet companies in both Europe and the United States, and formed his legendary partnership with British dancer Dame Margot Fonteyn. He reinvigorated contemporary ballet, particularly the importance of male dancers, by energizing his favorite traditional roles with unrestrained sexuality and unparalleled technical virtuosity. His personal life was equally full. He carried on affairs with men and women alike--most notable among these was his intense, decades-long involvement with his professional idol Erik Bruhn and his penchant for sexy young call-boys. He hung out at Studio 54 and crisscrossed the Atlantic with his socialite friends, but he also made time to mentor talented young dancers, including Paris Opera Ballet star Sylvie Guillem.
Biographer Diane Solway, who wrote Dance Against Time, a biography of Joffrey Ballet dancer Edward Sterle, has produced an exhaustively comprehensive report on Nureyev's life. The book's most important accomplishment is that it succeeds in correcting many of the myths that still cloak the story of Nureyev's life--she credibly suggests, for instance, that his defection was not premeditated. The flamboyant dancer, known to wear jeweled jock straps, was responsible for propagating most of the stories that grew up around him. He published a ghostwritten autobiography rife with inaccuracies in the early '60s, and much of the information about his first 20 or so years in the Soviet Union has remained inaccessible until very recently. Solway traveled to Russia to piece together her subject's early life with recently declassified documents and interviews with his friends, family, and even a few detractors. She also drew from another rare book, Rudolf Nureyev: Three Years in the Kirov Theater. The result is a biography that objectively addresses the facts and fictions of an extraordinary life to create a vivid and balanced portrait.
Book Description
Everyone knows the name Rudolf Nureyev, but does anyone know the man behind the myth? Diane Solway does; she spent over four years and conducted more than 200 interviews with his family, his friends and lovers, his colleagues, and even his doctors to research Nureyev: His Life the first book to capture him as he was onstage and off -- a great artist whose talent was matched only by his steely will to succeed.
Here is his professional career: his famed partnership with Margot Fonteyn, his personal transformation of the Royal Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet, his impact on dance companies all over the world, his collaborations with Martha Graham and Paul Taylor, and, behind all his accomplishments, the athletic grace and profound understanding that was his gift of genius. Here, too, is the private Nureyev: his Soviet childhood, his inner demons, the men and women who were willing to devote their lives to him. Solway chronicles his flamboyant, extravagant lifestyle, his celebrity-studded circle of friends -- Jacqueline Onassis, Andy Warhol, and Marlene Dietrich, to name only three -- his stormy love affairs, his homosexual promiscuity, and his death from AIDS in 1993.
Nureyev was his own masterpiece, a man always in the process of reinventing himself. Diane Solway's superb biography is as brilliant and as fascinating as the dazzling dancer at center stage.Everyone knows the name Rudolf Nureyev, but does anyone know the man behind the myth? Diane Solway does; she spent over four years and conducted more than 200 interviews with his family, his friends and lovers, his colleagues, and even his doctors to research Nureyev: His Life the first book to capture him as he was onstage and off -- a great artist whose talent was matched only by his steely will to succeed.Everyone knows the name Rudolf Nureyev, but does anyone know the man behind the myth? Diane Solway does; she spent over four years and conducted more than 200 interviews with his family, his friends and lovers, his colleagues, and even his doctors to research Nureyev: His Life the first book to capture him as he was onstage and off -- a great artist whose talent was matched only by his steely will to succeed.
Here is his professional career: his famed partnership with Margot Fonteyn, his personal transformation of the Royal Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet, his impact on dance companies all over the world, his collaborations with Martha Graham and Paul Taylor, and, behind all his accomplishments, the athletic grace and profound understanding that was his gift of genius. Here, too, is the private Nureyev: his Soviet childhood, his inner demons, the men and women who were willing to devote their lives to him. Solway chronicles his flamboyant, extravagant lifestyle, his celebrity-studded circle of friends -- Jacqueline Onassis, Andy Warhol, and Marlene Dietrich, to name only three -- his stormy love affairs, his homosexual promiscuity, and his death from AIDS in 1993.
Nureyev was his own masterpiece, a man always in the process of reinventing himself. Diane Solway's superb biography is as brilliant and as fascinating as the dazzling dancer at center stage.
Customer Reviews:
work of psychologist.......2007-02-20
The book gives impression of reading a work of psychologist. From the beginning to the end of the book, Diana could perfectly describe Nureyev's complex personality: disadvantaged childhood in Russia and aspiration for exposing a new world, warm Tatar blood and rudeness, egoism and ambition, brilliant talent and hard work, subtle sensibility and perfectionism, amazing beauty and extreme sexuality, the factors which contributed him becoming a great dancer of the century. Metaphors she used are funny and sharp as well. Finally, book gives very good information about the history of ballet, the culture that formed the background of the ballet etc.
Thanks Diane for this great job and thanks for giving a pleasure to the fans of Nureyev.
In fairness, a moderate success..............2000-07-08
With all the good reviews this work is receiving here, I feel that I must point out some of its short-comings. While the information in the book is exhaustive (sometimes to the point of seeming pretentious, as when Solway spends a footnote to provide the married name of an informant after having used her maiden name on the same page--why not just use the established convention of writing first, maiden, and last names?), the obvious research seems often tenuous. Solway's sources are frequently not identified; she writes numerous quotations without noting speakers' or informants' names. Are they Nureyev's words? Did one of his friends or family members say them? Did Solway invent them? How is one to know? How is one to credit the accuracy of a statement at all without the author's establishing of the source's credibility?
There is, of course, a great deal of credited information here, probably most that is not related to the dancer's sexual exploits already in print elsewhere. There is much that I did not know about the "hidden years" in Russia and near the end of the dancer's life. If the information is accurate, these bits are a valuable addition to the permanent body of knowledge about Nureyev (the reason for my 3 star rating).
However, I found the tone of the book uncomfortable. While it is presented as a serious biography, it seemed more akin to a (very weighty) gossip column to me. One other Amazon reviewer noted the presence of lots of stories about Nureyev's lovers (about 2 1/2 pages of speculation on whether Dame Margot Fonteyn was one of them--no definite conclusion). There are also the requisite _enfant terrible_ stories. But mostly missing are the stories of Nureyev's sweetness and generosity. I remember hearing one of his female colleagues say that, if you wanted him to dance for free at a gala you were planning, "all you have to do is cry a little" and he would do anything you wanted. I remember witnessing his evident devastated humility when he accidentally overbalanced a young Royal Ballet ballerina and nearly dropped her from a "bum lift" in a performance of _Fille mal Gardee_. This man could hardly have been the one described by Solway.
Solway does give attention to Nureyev's enormous drive, courage, and indomitability. In that, she is fair to him and to his legend. However, despite the length of the book, there is much missing from it, in my opinion.
Gripping, fascinating story of the man who changed ballet........1999-08-03
Diane Solway has researched and written an altogether fascinating biography of Rudolf Nureyev, the dancer who changed classical ballet in the 20th century. He was born to a impoverished family in Russia and untimately died on his private island purchased with the millions he made during his dance career--a true-life rags-to-riches story. But it is so much more...
What a career Nureyev had! As a child he danced to provide an escape from the poverty of his youth. Almost forcing his way into Russian ballet schools, he astonished even his detractors by his grace and vitality. Solway recreates the scene of his defection from Russia in gripping detail. From that moment on, Russia's loss--which they tried hard to ignore, not even allowing Nureyev to see his mother until she was on her deathbed--became the West's priceless gain.
In the West this amazing young man turned into a human dynamo, insisting that contracts be written to allow him to dance every night rather than the customary once or twice a month. Solway follows his transatlantic crossings in dizzying detail as he dances one night in New York, the next night in Paris, and the following night at a festival in mid-Europe. He extended his career far beyond the usual span for a male dancer, eventually forming his own companies so that he could continue to perform. He insisted on learning the stylized awkward steps for modern ballet, and his name filled many houses for benefit performances with modern dance groups. He staged and choreographed many classical ballets, acted in motion pictures, and acted the part of the king in "The King and I" on stage. In his declining years, he learned conducting techinques, and led several European orchestras in concert programs.
My son gave me this book for my birthday, and included with it the video "Fonteyn and Nureyev." What an inspired gift! Words can go only so far in describing dance--even the words of the dance critics whom Solway generously quotes. Nureyev's partnership with Fonteyn is the stuff of legends! This unlikely pair--she supposedly near the end of her careet and he just starting his--packed houses and evoked hour-long curtain calls with their emotion-packed virtuoso performances so clearly evident in the video and convincingly described by Solway.
In this day and age we are fascinated by the details of the sex lives of celebrities. Here, too, Solway does not dissappoint, although almost everything she quotes is not from Nureyev's mouth but from companions who may perhaps put their own personal agendas ahead of the literal truth. Nureyev became a icon for the gay community, and some were angry that he did not use his death from AIDS as a beacon for their cause.
Whatever his motivation, here is the gripping life story of a man who was driven to accomplish more in his half-century of frenzied life than any of us could possibly imagine. I am immensely grateful for Nureyev's richly creative life and, as well, for Diane Solways carefully detailed account of it.
the most detailed account of Nureyev's life.......1999-01-03
Compared to all the previous books about Rudolf Nureyev, Diane Solaway's "Nureyev: His Life" stands out as the most detailed, most researched and most complete account of the ballet dancer's life. Those who are interested in Russian culture, Tatar history, ballet, lives of gay celebrities, lifestyles of the rich and famous, etc. will find this book totally fascinating.
An excellent and very detailed account of Nureyev's life.......1998-11-28
ALthough verbose and at times too detailed, this is an excellent read full of interesting historical data (both on Russia and Nureyev's ethinic background: Tatar) and personal information on one of this century's greatest artists. Solway does a wonderful job of engaging the reader from page one onwards.
Book Description
The Real Nureyev is an intensely personal, under-the-skin depiction of ballets greatest hero. Written by Carolyn Soutar, who worked with Nureyev at the London Coliseum during the 1980s, this biography focuses on a six-year period of his life when his career was drawing to a close and this once phenomenal dancer began to call himself Old Galoshes, in recognition of his fading powers. From his close friends we learn of the changes in Nureyev: From a young man eager to learn, searching for perfection in a body he believed to be flawed, to the knowledgeable and difficult superstar that he would become. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, yet always deeply human, The Real Nureyev is an intimate insiders story of what the ballet icon was really about.
Customer Reviews:
A Not-Very-Intimate or Interesting Account of Nureyev.......2006-07-16
So dissatisfied was I with this book that when I finished it, I pulled out my l994 copy of the marvelous PERPETUAL MOTION: THE PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIVES OF RUDOLF NUREYEV by Otis Stuart and reread it. If you really want insight into Nureyev as a person and dancer, I recommend that you get Stuart's book and skip Soutar's. What Soutar principally does is list tidbits about Nureyev, a good portion of which come from people other than herself. About the only ones that were new to me were 1) that Nureyev's first encounter with Souter was in the nude and 2) that as his skills diminished, he referred to himself as "old galoshes." Souter also spends too much time detailing her job as a stage manager, work she makes seem quite tedious.
Andromeda.......2006-06-21
I am drawn to Nureyev because of his love of dance. He loves every part of it and draws you into his exciting world. He may have been a difficult person, but he was passionate about what he did. I enjoy reading about his life and what movitated his art.
Really Basic Mistake.......2006-06-17
Violette Very teaches at Indiana University not the University of Indiana. Indiana University is located in Bloomington, Indiana while the University of Indiana is located in Pennsylvania. Three stars for making such a basic mistake repeatedly.
Seems like yesterday..........2006-02-08
I loved this book! It brought back memories of sitting in theatres over a period of 25 years being mesmorized by Nureyev. Even after his technical powers were in decline, there was still that energy. Those of us that were there will never forget the feeling we had when he walked onto the stage. Thank you Carolyn for bringing it all back...How lucky we were to have been a part of it.
N.G.
Backstage and onstage magic with Nureyev.......2004-10-31
This book to me on a marvellous journey of discovery. Always enamoured with the theatre and having seen Nureyev perform years ago, this book opened up the world of backstage life and truly the Real Nureyev to me. The descriptions of backstage life were page-turning and to learn first hand about this amazing Icon of the 20th century was very precious.
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Nureyev in Paris: Le jeune homme et la mort
Jurgen Vollmer
Manufacturer: Modernismo Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Nureyev, Rudolf
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ASIN: B0006CLQFA |
Customer Reviews:
Nureyev in Paris.......2006-01-28
Photographs record rehearsals and performances of Le Jeune Homme et La Mort. A dramatic ballet by Roland Petit from a libretto of Jean Cocteau and stirring music by Bach. Rudolf Nureyev and Zizi Jeanmaire are outstanding in their portrayals of the Young Man who is seduced by Death. Performance may be seen on the DVD: Zizi Jeanmaire Dances Roland Petit.
Book Description
From the acclaimed author of This Side of Brightness, the epic life and times of Rudolf Nureyev, reimagined in a dazzlingly inventive masterpiece-published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Nureyev's death
A Russian peasant who became an international legend, a Cold War exile who inspired millions, an artist whose name stood for genius, sex, and excess-the magnificence of Rudolf Nureyev's life and work are known, but now Colum McCann, in his most daring novel yet, reinvents this erotically charged figure through the light he cast on those who knew him.
Taking his inspiration from the biographical facts, McCann tells the story through a chorus of voices: there is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protégé from the stunted life of his town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of Stalingrad to the wild abandon of New York in the eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous: doormen and shoemakers, Margot Fonteyn and John Lennon. And at the heart of the spectacle stands the artist himself, willful, lustful, and driven by a never-to-be-met need for perfection.
In ecstatic prose, McCann evokes the distinct consciousness of the man and the glittering reflection of the myth. The result is a monumental story of love, art, and exile.
Customer Reviews:
Riveting.......2006-12-02
This is one of the best written books I have read in a long time. Collum McCann's writing style just blew me away. In his book Dancer McCann wrote an entire chapter without one single period! The author uses only question marks and exclamation marks! Amazing! Rudolph Nureyev was a great dancer, a complex pesonality, a paradigm of his times. McCann's Nureyev is someone the reader will never forget. This book was just a marvelous read!
A Dancer's Psyche Explored.......2006-11-24
In my possession is an old and increasingly fragile newspaper clipping which depicts a portrait photograph. The face had been captured in a three-quarters profile, the strong chin uplifted slightly to suggest a bold self-confidence. The large, clear eyes were heavily lined in kohl. The mouth was full and perfectly formed, and the thin scar intersecting the upper lip added an unintentional defiance which seemed to say "I am beautiful despite the harshness of this world."
I was barely out of childhood when I came across this photograph in a newspaper. I can remember quite clearly how I sat before the open page and stared and stared and stared. I could not turn away from this image. The name of Rudolf Nureyev was only vaguely familiar to me then - but what a face! To consign it to the pile of discarded newspapers which were used, in our home, to wrap up vegetable peelings or food scraps before placing them in the refuge bin seemed some kind of subtle crime. And so very carefully I snipped out this image and saved it.
I was too young then to have any understanding of my own fascination with this particular face. My own reaction seemed almost mystical to me then. All I knew, at the time, was that Rudolf Nureyev was simply the most beautiful man I had ever seen.
This carefully hidden newspaper clipping launched an interest in ballet which lasts to this day. An interest which drew me to read Colum McCann's vivid and stylish fictionalised biography of the dancer who defected from Communist Russia and became the darling of the Western world. The book could be easily read simply as a novel which charts the life of a rugged and determined boy for whom poverty could not quench an instinctive love of music. He danced to entertain soldiers who sometimes threw him coins. He took lessons in secret, and learned how to carve out a career for himself in one of the most ruthless and demanding of all the arts.
One particular passage, (beginning on page 84 of my copy), opens with the phrase, "You see him on Rossi Street with his boots high on his calves, and his long red scarf trailing the ground behind him...", and goes on to describe Nureyev through the eyes of another, less talented ballet student. This section is exceptionally well-written, I think - in fact, I was so impressed with it that I read it aloud at a meeting of Riverside Writers as an example of good contemporary character description.
An attention-holding novel, and an intriguing insight into the creative mind of a complex and sometimes difficult character.
The Ultimate Dancer.......2005-05-26
Dancer is a fictional biography of the great Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev written by Colum McCann and is told by people who knew him or had the chance of meeting him .It is a charming book and it makes the reader feel as if the reader were with him when he lived his extraordinary life.We first see Rudi in a hospital ward while he was dancing for Russian soldiers wounded in World War II in a amateur group.Then altough his father forbade him to dance, his wish to dance and his teachers' support took him to Moscow.Later first visit to Paris,escaping from Russia,life in Paris,London,New York...
He was perfectionist and he fell in love with another perfectionist,male dancer Eric Bruhn.He danced with lots of famous ballerinas but one of them became his lifelong friend and best partner;Margot Fonteyn.
Before I read this fictional book of McCann I just knew that Rudolf Nureyev was just a dancer but later I learned that he was more than this.Sometimes a man missing his family, sometimes a man determined to be the ultimate dancer... But the most important is C. McCann's fabulous writing made me feel the spirit of the greatest of all dancers.
Superb fictional look at Nureyev from McCann.......2005-05-11
Colum McCann's "Dancer", a fictitious biography of acclaimed 20th Century dancer Rudolf Nureyev, is quite simply the author's finest work of fiction to date. This is truly an engrossing, often mesmerizing, exploration of the dancer's life as seen through the eyes of his family and friends from his childhood to the end of an artistically triumphant life tragically cut short by AIDS. The son of impoverished Muslim Tatar peasants, we meet the young "Rudik" dancing for Russian troops in the waning days of World War II. His teachers in his hometown and then later, in Lenningrad, recognize that here is someone who is destined to dance, culminating with his admittance into the company of Lenningrad's celebrated Kirov Ballet. His Paris defection only leads the young Rudolf Nureyev into scaling Mount Everests of international artistic triumphs, culminating with his dancing with acclaimed ballerina Margot Fonteyn at London's Covent Garden. But perhaps more fascinating is the dark side of Nureyev's personality, which McCann has captured vividly, showing the artist's arrogance and decadent behavior, including his brutal treatment of friends, colleagues and especially, lovers, such as acclaimed fellow dancer Erik Buhn. We see him sink into the seedy underground of New York City's homosexual-dominated sexual pleasure industry in the 1970s, while managing to keep his homosexuality a closely held secret. I concur completely with my former high school teacher Frank McCourt's glowing assessment of "Dancer" on the novel's book jacket as having "... the wingspan of a great Russian novel, which is only fitting for an imagined life of Rudolf Nureyev."
A riveting and moving novel.......2005-02-09
Mr McCann offers readers an astonishingly gripping biography of the Russian dancer Rudolph Nureyev written as a piece of fiction. It is not a biography in the classic sense of the term since real characters with true identities mingle with fictitious characters in episodes from the author's imagination. Nureyev's moody personality combined with his professionalism as a dancer are wonderfully captured by the author. By employing the technique of multiple narrators and skilfully interchanging between them - they are set in various locations in Russia, New York, France and England - Mr McCann has managed to produce the portrait of a vivid and many faceted artist with a tremendous charisma. Where most biographies tend to isolate and estrange its subject by pointing out its uniqueness, the author has achieved quite the opposite effect. Indeed, it often feels as if the reader were himself part of the dancer's exhilarating and thwarting lifestyle. It is the author's genius to transform carefully researched material into sparkling fiction on an artist whose fame, artistic accomplishment and shrewish, hedonistic, homosexual night life of 1970s New York are legendary.
Average customer rating:
- A fine biographical sketch for young readers.
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The Dancer Who Flew: A Memoir of Rudolf Nureyev
Linda Maybarduk
Manufacturer: Tundra Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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The Perfect Partnership - Fonteyn and Nureyev
ASIN: 0887764150
Release Date: 1999-09-18 |
Book Description
Few ballet dancers have held the world’s attention like Rudolf Nureyev. Naturally talented and technically brilliant, Nureyev had a charisma that knocked the dancing world on its heels. This stunning book is a very personal glimpse of a unique artist through the eyes of a fellow dancer and friend.
Linda Maybarduk was a first soloist with the National Ballet of Canada, one of Nureyev’s favorite companies. She tells the story of her colleague, her mentor, and her dear friend from his late start as a ballet dancer, through his escape to the West and meteoric rise to fame, to the sad ending of his career, when his body, but never his spirit, was defeated by age and illness.
Complete with a glossary of ballet terms, a useful reading list, and index, this is a book for both those who dance, and those who wish they did.
Customer Reviews:
A fine biographical sketch for young readers........2000-02-14
This memoir of Rudolf Nureyev provides a memoir of the fine dancer who defected to the West from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. A fine biographical sketch reveals his dancing career and life for students in the middle school level on up. END
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Fonteyn and Nureyev: The story of a partnership
Alexander Bland
Manufacturer: Times Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Nureyev, Rudolf
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ASIN: 0812908600 |
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Nureyev
Diane Solway
Manufacturer: Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0753807319 |
Customer Reviews:
Tour de force.......2006-08-26
Diane Solway's biography on Nureyev is a tour de force that sets out to accomplish what Virginia Woolf aptly christened to be the hallmark of a good biographer: "Almost any biographer, if he respects facts, can give us much more than another fact to add to our collection. He can give us the creative fact; the fertile fact; the fact that suggests and engenders". Meticulously researched and righting many misconceptions and misleading reports (including Nureyev's very own autobiography which veered towards convenience with the truth, not unlike the genre of autobiographies), Solway's book avoided the usual pitfalls pervading biographies written on famous but controversial personalities. Solway meritoriously stayed on neutral ground in her account of Nureyev's life and many loves, a far cry from biographers who tackled their favorite subject matters with a tad too much schmaltz and partiality. Solway's biography was devoid of sensationalism, not an easy feat considering Nureyev's history marred by self-interest, debauchery and promiscuity. To Solway's credit, Nureyev's story was a matter-of-fact chronology penned in an appreciably elegant prose. The book chronicled the Russian danseur's story in such a way that allows readers to luxuriate in the intricate plots and subplots of Nureyev's affairs, rendering us the voyeuristic satisfaction of living life vicariously through one of the most influential dance performers of our times. The gastronomy of supplemental knowledge presenting ballet as an art form and entertainment; summaries of visionary dance choreographers that made and continue to make classical ballet/modern dance tick; expose of the who's who in the dance world plus the plethora of scores that brought ballet performances to life, not least diligently selected photographs to accompany the book, culminated in a pheonomenal biography on Nureyev, the golden boy who took the world by storm for over two decades and the private being underneath the veil of success and glamor. A must-read for anyone in search of a faithful account of Nureyev's life story and his contributions. 5 stars.
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