Ballet Russia pays tribute to Nureyev
STARS of the Ballet Russia will be in South Africa this month with a programme that pays tribute to arguably the greatest male dancer of the 20th century, Rudolf Nureyev. It comes to Durban for two shows, on August 19 at 2pm and 6pm in the Playhouse Opera.
In a city starved of professional ballet, the regular visits from dancers of the Russian ballets are always a treat. This time, the dancers are from the Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre.
Nureyev was closely connected with the Bashkir Theatre: he made his first steps to world glory on this stage in Ufa city. There are five male and five female dancers from the Bashkir State Opera and Ballet Theatre as part of the South Africa tour. Company choreographer is Lyudmila Vasilevna Shapkina.
The company arrives in the country for an eight-city tour, performing in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Klerksdorp, Bloemfontein, Gaborone in Botswana, Port Elizabeth, East London and ending in Durban. This is the second Russian ballet tour of the year and follows the success of the Royal Moscow Ballet’s national tour in March.
The programme honouring Nureyev is in three parts: starting with a 10-minute documentary film about the life of Nureyev to contextualise the dancer, his work and times, and original footage of him dancing solo and with prima ballerina Dame Margot Fonteyn.
Fonteyn and Nureyev formed a partnership which is perhaps the most famous in modern theatre history. Despite Nureyev being 19 years younger than Fonteyn, the partnership achieved unprecedented international acclaim. Their last performance together was in Baroque Pas de Trois in 1988 – Fonteyn was then aged 69 and Nureyev 50.
The film is followed by a one-act ballet: Walpurgisnacht from Charles Gounod’s opera, Faust. The action of Walpurgisnacht takes place in Mephistopheles’s estate.
The second act, entitled Divertissement from Ballets sees a re-enactment of 10 of the greatest moments in Russian ballet for which Nureyev is remembered, including excerpts from Johann Strauss’s ballet, The Blue Danube; Charles-camille Saint-saens’s choreographic miniature The Swan; Adolphe Adam’s pas de deux from the ballet Le Corsaire; Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s choreographic miniature A Russian and the grand pas from the ballet Don Quixote.
Nureyev (March 17, 1938 – January 6, 1993) achieved rock-star status when he became the first high-profile soviet artist to defect during the Cold War to work in the West in 1961.
Nureyev’s early career was with the The Mariinsky Ballet, the resident classical ballet company of the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, After defecting to the West, he went on to dance with the Royal Ballet in London from 1983 to 1989 and then served as director of the Paris Opera Ballet from 1983 until 1989, and its chief choreographer until October 1992.
Stars of the Ballet Russia is presented by Edouard Miasnikov Agency, whose objective remains to widen cultural exchange and sharing between Russia and South Africa: www.russianartists.co.za. Booking for the national tour is through www. computicket.com and at Shoprite Checkers.