World Mourns Death Of Rudolf Nureyev

The prince is dead.

Rudolf Nureyev, 54, the most famous classical danseur of his generation, and the first Soviet star to defect to the West (1961), died today in Paris "from cardiac complications following a devastating illness," said doctor Michel Canesi. "Following (his) wishes, I can't say any more."

In one of his last public appearances Oct. 8 at Paris Opera for a premiere of his "La Bayadere," he looked gaunt and had to be helped to walk. He blinked back tears as the audience gave him a 10-minute standing ovation.

Born in 1938 to a Tatar mother on a train crossing Siberia, Nureyev from the start was blessed, or cursed, with a restless energy, with the need never to compromise, whether with a country, a ballet teacher, a company or a lover.

Indeed, much of the joy of watching him at the height of his career was seeing how he presented that energy, which was charged with a an impetuous, pantherlike sensuality. Nureyev used his classical technique, gained under Leningrad's Kirov Ballet teacher Alexander Pushkin, as a reference point, instead of a goal, which brought him immortal artistry.

The fiery dancer made his greatest maneuver in his defection, in Paris, after a history of clashes with the Soviet authorities.

While sipping coffee with the other dancers minutes before he was to board a plane to Moscow, Nureyev made his split-second decision to defect. Soviet guards tried to block his way, but he managed to reach a French policeman, shouting "Protect me!"

He was whisked away to the French Interior Ministry and granted political asylum. He became a naturalized Austrian citizen in 1982.

The Soviet newspaper Izvestia called him "a traitor to Soviet art and his country."

"I have no country," Nureyev told Newsweek in 1965. "For me a country is just a place to dance. Your roots are your work. Work is sacred."

Soon thereafter, he began work at London's Royal Ballet, with Dame Margot Fonteyn, then in her early 40s and contemplating retirement, as his partner. Working with Nureyev in one of the most celebrated dance partnership of the 20th century, Fonteyn reached new career heights herself, and the pair toured internationally to standing ovations.

They were first seen in Seattle with Royal Ballet in 1965; gasps greeted their performances in two ballet classics, "Sylvia" and "Giselle." The leaps by Nureyev produced gasps of disbelief, the pirouettes dazzled, the delicate yet passionate partnering was breathtaking.

His fame spread far beyond the dance world, to audiences who had never, or rarely, seen ballet. He was lionized as a celebrity and was ballyhooed in the media for a Beatle-style haircut, his eccentric clothes, his occasional clashes with Western authorities over smoking marijuana, and his intensity about his art.

In an interview in 1989, when Nureyev was in Seattle to perform in "The King and I," he told me he read no reviews, but asked others, "Did they s--- on me, or miss me?"

Always pushing himself for more, reluctant to retire from dancing even after disastrous appearances in films such as "Valentino" and stage shows such as the touring "The King and I," Nureyev once told a reporter he kept dancing for so long because he possessed "quality, expertise and knowledge superior to any youngster's."

"If you persevere, that is what you are going to get," he said. "If you don't, you get all chicken-livered and you can't stay around.

"I have no distractions, no home life, no family here - I keep going because everything goes into my work. I just work."

As his body, which originally electrified audiences with super-high leaps, gradually lost its strength, he turned to choreography. He directed the Paris Opera Ballet from 1983-89.

In the past couple of years, Nureyev had begun to conduct orchestras for ballet performances. Last summer he made his American debut as a conductor in New York with American Ballet Theater.

Pacific Northwest Ballet director Kent Stowell said that the last time he was in Paris, in 1989, Nureyev was rehearsing his acting/singing role in "The King and I."

"The first stop of the touring musical was to be Seattle," Stowell said. "So I told him that when he was here he would be welcome to take company class at our studios. Nureyev laughed and replied, `I don't want to work that hard anymore!' "

"Dance is my life," Nureyev once said. "It means, well, somehow life tastes better when I dance."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.