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Noureev. Autobiographie (ARTHAUD POCHE)
"Mais qu’allais-je trouver de l’autre côté de la barrière, ici en Europe ? Je me retrouverais seul, mais pas de la façon que j’affectionnais : ce serait la solitude totale. Cette nouvelle liberté me semblait bien sombre. Je savais pourtant que c’était là le seul choix possible, parce qu’il m’offrait l’espoir de construire quelque chose qui me corresponde, l’espoir d’apprendre, d’observer par moi-même, de grandir..."
En 1962, alors que la guerre froide atteint son apogée, le jeune Russe Rudolf Noureev éblouit l’Occident par son art et devient en quelques mois une star de renommée internationale. C’est le moment que ce danseur de 25 ans choisit pour publier le témoignage de ses jeunes années, depuis son enfance difficile en URSS jusqu’à son passage fracassant à l’Ouest, tout juste un an auparavant.
L’ancienne étoile du ballet soviétique du Kirov en passe de devenir une superstar occidentale se livre entièrement dans ce texte, qui mettra plus de cinquante ans à être édité en France. Toute la personnalité de Noureev y figure déjà, avec ce caractère entier et volontaire, source de mélancolie, mais aussi atout essentiel pour oser transgresser l’autorité familiale, politique et artistique de son temps.
En 1962, alors que la guerre froide atteint son apogée, le jeune Russe Rudolf Noureev éblouit l’Occident par son art et devient en quelques mois une star de renommée internationale. C’est le moment que ce danseur de 25 ans choisit pour publier le témoignage de ses jeunes années, depuis son enfance difficile en URSS jusqu’à son passage fracassant à l’Ouest, tout juste un an auparavant.
L’ancienne étoile du ballet soviétique du Kirov en passe de devenir une superstar occidentale se livre entièrement dans ce texte, qui mettra plus de cinquante ans à être édité en France. Toute la personnalité de Noureev y figure déjà, avec ce caractère entier et volontaire, source de mélancolie, mais aussi atout essentiel pour oser transgresser l’autorité familiale, politique et artistique de son temps.
369 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1963
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 28, 2011
During the 60's & the "Cold War" there was a mystique about anyone who defected from Russia, everyone in the West wanted to know about life there so there was great interest when this book arrived, enhanced by the stunning photographs of Richard Avedon - someone else whose work I admired. I did not have to beg my local library in my then little schoolgirl voice to stock it and I was overjoyed for once, finding it displayed in the new books section (I can't remember the date I read this so have listed it read as today), I did however have to get my mother to borrow it for me since it was in the adult section of the library - by that I mean it wasn't in the children's section.
I'm going on memory now as I don't own it, but Nureyev kept politics to a minimum - which might have been a disappointment to some wanting confirmation of a despotic government.
It's main theme is Nureyev's obsession to dance, and his singlemindedness to study ballet and to perform majestically - as he did - his intense individuality & character surely helped pave his way to success. It was unusual at the time for one so young to publish an autobiography, and it may have been to satisfy the public's need for information about Russia for some truth. I remember at that time, sitting in church hearing diatribes against all things communist which by default included anything Russian - so McCarthyism's tenets had most westerners shaking in their boots one way or another. However Nureyev doesn't go there specifically, it's more about himself, his childhood, his craving for personal creative expression and his early life as a dance professional and of course his defection to the west and coming to terms with a different life there. It does become clear why he chose asylum in the west - to seek refuge from the creative conformity he felt in his home country which was the norm then.
I'm going on memory now as I don't own it, but Nureyev kept politics to a minimum - which might have been a disappointment to some wanting confirmation of a despotic government.
It's main theme is Nureyev's obsession to dance, and his singlemindedness to study ballet and to perform majestically - as he did - his intense individuality & character surely helped pave his way to success. It was unusual at the time for one so young to publish an autobiography, and it may have been to satisfy the public's need for information about Russia for some truth. I remember at that time, sitting in church hearing diatribes against all things communist which by default included anything Russian - so McCarthyism's tenets had most westerners shaking in their boots one way or another. However Nureyev doesn't go there specifically, it's more about himself, his childhood, his craving for personal creative expression and his early life as a dance professional and of course his defection to the west and coming to terms with a different life there. It does become clear why he chose asylum in the west - to seek refuge from the creative conformity he felt in his home country which was the norm then.
April 19, 2016
p.35 – My first encounter with ballet, which was going to fill my entire life from then on, was unorthodox. It was love at first sight, but only through housebreaking. Mother had only managed to buy a single ticket to the Opera on that night for the entire family, but she was determined to try and get us all in somehow. So we arrived. My three sisters, my mother and myself. At the of the theatre we found a vast, impatient crowd. This was just at the end of the war. The natural love innate in every Russian for music and ballet was made even stronger during those years by the fact and one was prepared to give anything in exchange for a little dream, a momentary escape from the nightmare of everyday life. The Russians’ boundless spiritual resources, the profundity of their inner life – the sheer capacity that they have to cut themselves away from the sordidness of their daily struggles is for me perhaps the strongest explanation of the enormous success which almost any manifestation of art can command in the Soviet Union. The crowd was getting bigger and bigger every minute. It was pushing so strongly against the large doors of the [Ufa] Opera that suddenly they collapsed, the entrance was wide open and we were all literally propelled inside. Under cover of the general chaos the five Nureyevs were in, in on one ticket.
p.57 – A school and company founded when St. Petersburg was only thirty-six years old – in 1738, exactly two centuries before I was born.
On the 25th of August 1955, at the age of seventeen, I entered that coveted temple of dancing: the Leningrad Ballet School.
p.63 – [The dance teacher Alexander Pushkin] was a man capable of probing deeply into each student’s character, of devising for each one individually interesting combinations of steps calculated to stimulate their interest and eagerness to work. He was always trying to utilize the good points in each one of us – not concentrating on our defects, not trying t re-shape our personalities, but, on the contrary, respecting them, so that each could bring to his dancing some individual colour, the reflection of his own inner life. After all, it is the dancer’s personality which brings life and grandeur to classical ballet.
p.76 – The time had now come to choose: Bolshoi or Kirov. It seemed to me that the Bolshoi was too restricting for its artists to express themselves to the full – always with the exception of Ulanova, of course, who continues in her unique, wonderful way, living for her art. She alone, the first ballerina of the world, can steer her undeviating course, always unassuming, always modestly dressed, utterly absorbed in her dancing and entirely immune from all theatre intrigues. Her inner strength, her own human qualities, are the reasons why she remains perennially uncorrupted. For lesser artists the Bolshoi’s policy can often prove disastrous, turning them into mere athletes, record-breakers with marvelous muscles of steel but no heart and no deep sensitive love for the art they serve. For the Bolshoi has been turned into a national show-place and one of its main functions is to empress visiting foreigners as well as the hordes of tourists who pour into the capital every day from the farthest outposts of the Soviet Union. It goes without saying then, therefore, that the work of the Bolshoi must strongly mirror Governmental policy and abide strictly by all the rules; the repertoire must always contain ballets promoting official viewpoints on a level which the masses can easily apprehend. Leningrad is in a different position. Situated as it is, at a considerable distance from the Governmental centre, it is not so rigidly controlled or artistically made to toe the line. Impartial observers have often noticed a certain sophistication there which is not to be found at the Bolshoi. It is a significant fact that some of our best Soviet ballets since the Revolution (such as Romeo and Juliet, or Laurentia) have been created by the Kirov and only taken up by the Bolshoi a long time afterwards. For all these reasons, plus the fascination of its great past, its direct link with the famous Mariinsky, and my own link with the Leningrad Ballet School – I chose the Kirov.
p.57 – A school and company founded when St. Petersburg was only thirty-six years old – in 1738, exactly two centuries before I was born.
On the 25th of August 1955, at the age of seventeen, I entered that coveted temple of dancing: the Leningrad Ballet School.
p.63 – [The dance teacher Alexander Pushkin] was a man capable of probing deeply into each student’s character, of devising for each one individually interesting combinations of steps calculated to stimulate their interest and eagerness to work. He was always trying to utilize the good points in each one of us – not concentrating on our defects, not trying t re-shape our personalities, but, on the contrary, respecting them, so that each could bring to his dancing some individual colour, the reflection of his own inner life. After all, it is the dancer’s personality which brings life and grandeur to classical ballet.
p.76 – The time had now come to choose: Bolshoi or Kirov. It seemed to me that the Bolshoi was too restricting for its artists to express themselves to the full – always with the exception of Ulanova, of course, who continues in her unique, wonderful way, living for her art. She alone, the first ballerina of the world, can steer her undeviating course, always unassuming, always modestly dressed, utterly absorbed in her dancing and entirely immune from all theatre intrigues. Her inner strength, her own human qualities, are the reasons why she remains perennially uncorrupted. For lesser artists the Bolshoi’s policy can often prove disastrous, turning them into mere athletes, record-breakers with marvelous muscles of steel but no heart and no deep sensitive love for the art they serve. For the Bolshoi has been turned into a national show-place and one of its main functions is to empress visiting foreigners as well as the hordes of tourists who pour into the capital every day from the farthest outposts of the Soviet Union. It goes without saying then, therefore, that the work of the Bolshoi must strongly mirror Governmental policy and abide strictly by all the rules; the repertoire must always contain ballets promoting official viewpoints on a level which the masses can easily apprehend. Leningrad is in a different position. Situated as it is, at a considerable distance from the Governmental centre, it is not so rigidly controlled or artistically made to toe the line. Impartial observers have often noticed a certain sophistication there which is not to be found at the Bolshoi. It is a significant fact that some of our best Soviet ballets since the Revolution (such as Romeo and Juliet, or Laurentia) have been created by the Kirov and only taken up by the Bolshoi a long time afterwards. For all these reasons, plus the fascination of its great past, its direct link with the famous Mariinsky, and my own link with the Leningrad Ballet School – I chose the Kirov.
July 21, 2017
It's been too long since I read this (in junior high school) for me to evaluate the book on its literary merits; all I remember is that I read it because of my lifelong fascination with the USSR but fell in love with both Nureyev - who still, when I see him on film, just blows me away - and with ballet, which I pursued (not for a career, simply for the love of it) for years afterwards. Seriously, if you can find a recording of this man dancing, watch it. He was amazing.
December 9, 2022
Témoignage très intéressant sur la vie de ce célèbre danseur écrit juste après son passage à l’ouest, une sorte de bouclier de survie face au risque d’élimination des services soviétiques
November 5, 2012
This book for me is not just an autobiography in a sense of telling the life events: when born, where went to school, etc. It is an autobiography, even a statement, of an artist. It is full of Nureyev thoughts on dancers, problems of teaching, learning, understanding dance. I could easily tear the whole book to citations! I hope this book helped me to understand the classical ballet a little bit more, and made me think on some creative issues of the dancer... I will certainly return to this book.
April 22, 2016
Written in Nureyev's early 20's, one can see Nureyev's art/self/political predicament from his own view. Invaluable. He shows himself to be quite an artist, first and foremost, and the differences between America and Russia in art and politics are quite clear. The pictures by Avedon are breathtaking. Loved it.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews