Patricia Ruanne Part 2: Rudolf Nureyev and the Passion for Work

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BB: Can you recall particular images or visual metaphors, or references to other choreographers or movement genres that Rudolf used to develop the physical language for Romeo? After viewing a recent Paris Opera performance of the ballet, I was struck by what I sensed were influences from the Limón and Graham vocabularies of modern dance—both in compositional structure as well as in the ballet’s gestural sensibility. Can you shed light on the kind of thinking or rehearsal language that was used during your Romeo rehearsals with Nureyev?

Patricia Ruanne and Rudolf Nureyev in Romeo and Juliet, 1977. Photo: Anthony Crickmay

Ms. Ruanne: Initial rehearsals—for principals only—were held at Donmar Studios in Covent Garden and always at night, because Rudolf was filming Valentino during the day. Full company rehearsals took place at Queen Alexandra House in Kensington, still the English National Ballet’s headquarters today.

Rudolf had recently been working a great deal in America and was dedicatedly enlarging his knowledge of contemporary dance. So yes, he was much influenced by Limón and Graham, among others. It was a very interesting process of development for me personally as much of the Graham scale of movement was wonderful in sensation but required a lot of trial and error to accomplish en pointe! We had no training in this technique and I was merely trying to imitate a visual image. I fell down a lot!

The pas de quatre of Lord and Lady Capulet, Paris, and Juliet in Act III was definitely an hommage to Jose Limón. The flag dance in Act II was inspired by a visit to Sienna. Other influences were surely film-based. The brief men’s dance in the Capulet ballroom scene can be loosely recognized in Fiddler on the Roof, courtesy of Jerome Robbins; and certain moments of the fight in Act I owe something to the rumble in West Side Story (Robbins again). Some steps in the acrobats’ dance in Act II will seem familiar if you’ve seen the waiters’ dance in Hello Dolly, and can be seen as a tribute to Gene Kelly.

None of this, of course, can be construed as a lack of imagination on Rudolf’s part. He was simply fascinated by the possibility of stretching the classical vocabulary to include other physical elements. Part of the challenge was fitting them into a classical framework, and while the puzzle he was working out was frequently painful, it was also great fun. I remember much laughter in rehearsals—always a good sign!

BB: I saw Nureyev’s production of Swan Lake at La Scala. It made me want to revisit more of his work. Do you have any insight on the positioning of the male role, or the male duets in Swan Lake, and on the placement of trio configuration at the end between Von Rothbart, Siegfried, and Odette? There was a sadness in Nureyev’s Prince, and a darkness that surprised me.

Ms. Ruanne: Rudolf's Swan Lake is very dark, very psychological. It’s like the whole thing is a dream. The Prince, in terms of his position, becomes another pawn manipulated by the people who surround him. He will never have any kind of real freedom, and has to do what is expected of him because of his heritage. In a sense, the person that the Prince admires is Von Rothbart. He also admires his tutor as a role model, but also fears him, because he might be manipulated by him. It’s the classic coming of age question—whom can you trust?—and the answer is nobody. And so, the dream element with the swans is, of course, very idealistic. When Rudolf talked about Swan Lake, it was as if he was led from one idea to another. I was not there when he created it but he told me that he viewed the swan as masculine. So probably a lot of zones were touched for him within this work. His version of Swan Lake was very forward thinking and predated Matthew Bourne's.

BB: I was just about to say that I was struck by similarities between Bourne’s version and Nureyev’s. I am not sure that my own reading of Nureyev’s Swan Lake would have been the same without having seen Bourne’s.

Ms. Ruanne: My feeling is that inevitably Swan Lake is a woman’s ballet, but Rudolf would have just gone wild if he had seen Bourne’s version. It echoes in a way I think everything that Rudolf wanted to do. He let men dance together, which they did in Romeo and Juliet, and broke with classical partnering conventions. It had been done for years in contemporary dance, but he was brave enough to do it within a classical situation.