Rudolf Nureyev DVD 1991 Рудолф Нурејев - documentary / Directed by Patricia Foy / Narrated by Cliff Morgan / With Maude Lloyd, David Wall, Natalia Dudinskaya, Anna Undeltsova

UPC 4006680101040

REGION 2, 5 PAL DVD

MADE IN EU

AUDIO: English, German, French

SUBTITLES: Dutch 

TOTAL RUNTIME: 90 minutes

!!! Condition of this DVD is USED LIKE NEW !!!

English Description:

Rudolf Khametovich Nureyev (/ˈnjʊəriɛf,njʊˈreɪɛf/ NEWR-ee-ef, nyuurr-AY-ef; Tatar: Рудольф Хәмит улы Нуриев; Russian: Рудо́льф Хаме́тович Нуре́ев, IPA: [rʊˈdolʲf nʊˈrʲejɪf]; 17 March 1938 – 6 January 1993) was a Soviet ballet dancer and choreographer. Nureyev is regarded by some as the greatest male ballet dancer of his generation.

Nureyev was born on a Trans-Siberian train near Irkutsk, Siberia, Soviet Union to a Bashkir-Tatar family. He began his early career with the company that in the Soviet era was called the Kirov Ballet (now called by its original name, the Mariinsky Ballet) in Leningrad. He defected from the Soviet Union to the West in 1961, despite KGB efforts to stop him. This was the first defection of a Soviet artist during the Cold War, and it created an international sensation. He went on to dance with The Royal Ballet in London and from 1983 to 1989 served as director of the Paris Opera Ballet. In addition to his technical prowess, Nureyev was an accomplished choreographer serving as the chief choreographer of the Paris Opera Ballet. He produced his own interpretations of numerous classical works, including Swan Lake, Giselle, and La Bayadère. 

Directed by Patricia Foy, this documentary chronicles the ups and downs of the revolutionary ballet star Rudolf Nureyev's career, from his poverty-ridden childhood, to his life as a ballet student, to the defection which led him to some of the greatest roles he would take on. This DVD also examines Nureyev's professional relationship with Margot Fonteyn, his rumored depression, and his overall effect on modern dance

Cast: Dame Margot Fonteyn, Dame Ninette de Valois, Dame Merle Park, Maude Lloyd, Sylvie Guillem, David Wall, Roland Petit, Natalia Dudinskaya, Razida Evegrafova, Taisiam Khalturina, Anna Undeltsova, Marina Vivien

No performer on the world stage received so much acclaim and publicity as Rudolf Nureyev, and no one gave away so little about their private life and thinking. In this television biography, made some twelve months before his death in 1993, Nureyev tells his own story in his own words and recalls turning points in his career.

The programme traces Nureyev’s life, starting out from his home town of Ufa in the shadow of the Ural Mountains, half way between Moscow and Siberia. When filming took place there, Ufa had changed very little since his departure thirty years before. The school was still there and so was the modest wooden house, which his family shared with two others. The green curtains still hung at the old theatre, where he saw the ballet performance which changed the course of his life.

Nureyev’s sister, his head mistress and the dance teacher who first discovered him (101 years old at the time this programme was made), all recall the solitary rebel. At the Kirov Theatre, the prima ballerina who was his first partner remembers the student who emerged as the most brilliant dancer of his generation.

The cameras were also allowed to film Nureyev on his Mediterranean island of Li Galli, which once belonged to another Russian dancer, Massine.

Nureyev’s dancing career has been extensively chronicled on film and television. This definitive biography incorporates extensive archive material and documents Nureyev’s career with footage of his greatest roles and the most important events in his life.

Ninette de Valois, mentor; Margot Fonteyn, partner; Roland Petit, choreographer; and Sylvie Guillem, dancer, are among those who comment on the life and legend of this fiery Tartar. There are extracts from the following ballets: Le Corsaire, The Sleeping Beauty, Marguerite and Armand, Apollo, Aureole, Don Quixote, Cinderella and Pierrot Lunaire.