Second life for \u201cNureyev\u201d: At its premiere in Russia, the ballet was highly praised and celebrated, but in 2022 it vanished from the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre\u2019s program as new Russian laws targeted \u201cLGBTQ-propaganda.\u201d Now it returns to the stage at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, directed by the gay, regime-critical Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov.<\/p>\n
It is \u201csomething very special\u201d to revive the piece about the famous dancer Rudolf Nureyev in Berlin, says Brazilian David Soares, who, along with several other soloists, performs the title role, to the AFP news agency. The 28-year-old had already participated in the staging in Russia, but fled to the West just as director Serebrennikov did after the start of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cNureyev\u201d traces the life of the prize-winning, openly gay dancer who defected from the Soviet Union to France in 1961 and died in 1993 from AIDS-related illness. In 2023 the piece was banned in Russia for allegedly spreading non-traditional values and LGBTQ propaganda.<\/p>\n
Tens of thousands of Russians have since fled their homeland\u2014similar to what Nureyev did in his time. Many of them have found refuge in Berlin, seen as the unofficial capital of the Russian opposition.<\/p>\n
The Putin regime pursued Serebrennikov for years<\/p>\n
The celebrated premiere of \u201cNureyev\u201d at the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre in December 2017 was something the director Serebrennikov could not attend in person\u2014he was under house arrest on charges many observers regarded as politically motivated. In 2022 he escaped to Berlin, where he lives in exile today.<\/p>\n
The message of the piece for Western audiences remains the same as at its original debut more than eight years ago in Russia, says the 56-year-old director: \u201cBecause we live in a time when freedom and common sense are in short supply.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rudolf Nureyev, for him, embodies a \u201crebel\u201d who does not belong to any single era. He is more \u201ca model for how to resist gray, dull normality,\u201d Serebrennikow tells AFP.<\/p>\n
For solo dancer David Soares, it is \u201cimpossible to truly embody Nureyev.\u201d He was \u201cmore than a ballet star; he was a personality,\u201d says the 28-year-old. To prepare for the role, he studied Nureyev\u2019s interviews to learn his behavior, how he stood, how he walked, and how he spoke with people. As a dancer, Nureyev possessed a \u201cunique\u201d style, with \u201cexplosive leaps, extreme expression, and artistic freedom in every sense of the word.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Berlin, \u201cNureyev\u201d will be performed starting this coming Saturday with minor deviations, practically in the same choreography as the Moscow premiere in 2017. This was the request of the Berlin State Ballet\u2019s intendant, says Serebrennikow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Second life for \u201cNureyev\u201d: At its premiere in Russia, the ballet was highly praised and celebrated, but in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[99],"tags":[23895,23896,112,190,4322,23897,13878,238],"class_list":["post-42237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-berlin","tag-ballet","tag-banned","tag-berlin","tag-germany","tag-lgbtq","tag-nureyev","tag-propaganda","tag-russia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116246411181453131","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}