- Born
- 17 March 1938near Irkutsk, Soviet Union
- Died
- 6 January 1993Levallois-Perret, France · aged 54
Rudolf Nureyev
The greatest male dancer of the 20th century defected from the Soviet Union in 1961 and transformed ballet – he died of AIDS at 54.
Rudolf Nureyev was born on a Trans-Siberian train near Lake Baikal, the son of a Tatar family, and grew up in poverty in Ufa in the Urals. He started ballet late, at 17, but his talent took him to the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, where he quickly became a star.
In June 1961, during a tour in Paris, he refused at the airport to board the plane back to Moscow and asked for asylum in France. It was the first defection of a Soviet artist during the Cold War and caused a worldwide sensation. In London he joined the Royal Ballet, where his partnership with the much older ballerina Margot Fonteyn became legendary.
Nureyev transformed the role of the male dancer from a mere partner into a star with his own virtuoso solos. From 1983 to 1989 he was director of the Paris Opera Ballet. His great love was the Danish dancer Erik Bruhn, with whom he had a relationship for many years. He became a citizen of Austria in 1982.
In the 1980s he contracted HIV, but kept it secret and continued to work. His last production, “La Bayadère” (1992), was an emotional farewell. He died near Paris in 1993, aged 54.