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

4/5

BB: I was really moved in seeing Swan Lake and felt retrospectively that it was an achievement for its time. It certainly did break ground in ballet in a way that I had not fully understood before and, as I said, this feeling is probably a partial result of seeing Bourne’s version.

Ms. Ruanne: I thought one of the most interesting elements in Nureyev’s Swan Lake was the lack of décor. The pastel backcloth at the opening is a reminder that nothing is clearly positioned in time: you have an awareness of time, but only a remembrance of bright turquoise and blue and green. This is all part of a scenario that locates the ballet in a dream state. You become very focused on what happens on the stage because there is absolutely nothing to distract you from the image of what you see in dance terms: there is no venue, no palace. It’s the merest indication of something as opposed to what we are normally told to see through a highly descriptive décor. It’s odd because décor was one of Rudolf’s passions, you know; huge staircases and this and that. He loved the theatrical reality that is associated with the big story ballets and the classics. But Swan Lake’s minimalist look is a real contrast and so it is very, very interesting choice.

BB: What do you find in Nureyev’s stagings of the classic ballets, or in his version of Romeo and Juliet, that leads you to feel that this work is compelling and part of an oeuvre that should be kept alive?

Ms. Ruanne: Well, I think that the main issue is the technical challenge for dancers in what he has done because in all of his classical stagings he’s maintained the basic structure of the traditional work. The changes were choreographic within the tradition that these ballets represented: he made the ballets harder. He also revalued the position of male dancers and this is terribly important. Traditionally the male dancer would just support the ballerina. Apart from certain set pieces—“Bluebird” from Beauty, for instance—they never had very much to do. He completely reevaluated them. The boys’ work is as important as the girls’ in Rudolf’s view. In most productions, the boys always have two girls to waltz, because there are fewer men in the company. Rudolf always includes a section where the boys have to dance, not just partner. That was an enormous change—his insistence that the males have a coequal role. Today, they can all dance. There is no reason for the men just to be decorative, carrying the women about the stage.

Rudolf’s sense of the theatre and drama is, for me, amazing. I love MacMillan’s version of Romeo; it’s the first one I ever saw, so it will stay forever in my mind as being something astonishing. But Rudolf’s theatricality and his brutality convey such realism! I mean, everybody criticizes it because it has diminished to some degree the importance of Romeo and Juliet as characters. They are seen as products of their environment. But this is necessary to serve the realism. I mean, in those fight scenes, if those boys don’t learn to do it properly, then it’s off to the dispensary with stitches in your hand or a bloody nose. Rudolf didn’t want to do it part way. He brought in an American who at the time was doing all the fights in things like The Three Musketeers, and he taught the boys how to pull punches and make it look as if they had really done what they were supposed to be doing. The first cast took it to an extreme point. Rudolf wanted that kind of action to be absolutely realistic.

I don’t think Nureyev’s Beauty could be better. It’s magnificent. I have always heard the arguments about the décor. I didn’t like the last production here with Ezio Frigerio [at the Paris Opera]. I don’t like the designs, either for the décor or the costumes. But that’s my personal thought. Rudolf’s Don Quixote also has not been bettered. His works don’t date choreographically, because they are just as challenging for dancers today as they were sixteen or twenty years ago. They are not easy ballets to do. I am not speaking just about principal roles and the soloists; the corps de ballet also has very challenging work—their choreography is very, very difficult. This is one part of the ongoing discussion with the Foundation. In order for these ballets to survive, they have to be reduced.

BB: In what sense?

Ms. Ruanne: Reduced in the amount of numbers; they may have to make some musical cuts eventually because Rudolf always restored every single cut that is usually made in the standard versions of these ballets. Most of the ballets are too long—they’re not feasible except for the very largest companies. You can do them in a big state house when you don’t have to worry about the ending time. There are many companies in the world who would love to have parts of Nureyev’s repertoire, even one ballet, but they either don’t have enough dancers or can’t afford the sets and costumes. That’s an area which needs to be looked into. Beauty, for example, which is vast, has a smaller version, which is what we did at the Finnish Ballet. It’s not as big as they do here at the Paris Opera, or as we did at the Coliseum in London. But most companies couldn’t possibly put that number of people on stage and still have room to dance. All of this has to be sorted out so productions may be available that do not require a cast of 120 people on stage. It’s going to take a while to do, that’s for sure, but from the point of view of the classical repertoire, from Swan Lake to Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadère, Romeo and Juliet, and Cendrillon, these ballets must be kept. They must be maintained because they are such perfect representations of a particular tradition and at the same time still speak in today’s context.