Word: nureyev
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Manhattan balletomanes had been waiting for months, and now the Royal Ballet was actually in town. Impresario Sol Hurok's Barnum-sized package included 500 tons of scenery, 160 people, and the most spectacular new dance partnership in half a century: Dame Margot Fonteyn and Russian Defector Rudolf Nureyev, starring in a ballet created expressly for their extraordinary talents...
Last week the suspense was scheduled to end. In Swan Lake, the two visitors brought the house down. Then, for an audience starring the President's wife, one ex-President's daughter (Margaret Truman Daniel), and one presidential also-ran (Adlai Stevenson), Hurok presented Fonteyn and Nureyev together in the U.S. premiere of Marguerite and Armand, the latest version of Camille...
...result is a ballet the like of which has never been seen on any stage. The curtain rises on Marguerite, lying on a chaise longue in her nightie, and dreaming. Of what? Of Armand, of course. And to leave no doubt, Nureyev's face, a hundred times lifesize, flashes on a giant screen. Next come the flashbacks...
...rest of her body is even more expressive than her articulate legs and feet. For one exquisite moment in their carefree love scene, as Rudolf carries Margot downstage, holding her high, the bones seem to melt out of her joints and she becomes more limp than a rag doll. Nureyev is inspired by her virtuosity. In scene after scene, they act out the passionate affair of Marguerite and Armand. Denied an opportunity to show off his airborne virtuosity, only in the betrayal scene does Nureyev show the hot Tartar blood of which he boasts. Fonteyn dies fetchingly in her nightie...
...were hiding out in Spain. Banning the Stalingrad show may just possibly have been repaid last week when German police failed to prevent mysterious French agents in Munich from kidnaping a top S.A.O. leader, Antoine Argoud (see below). But it seemed unlikely that Khrushchev would care greatly if Nureyev danced in Paris, or that Adenauer would object to being damned by Nikita on TV. On the other hand, when a government is not subject to censure or legal redress, who expects logic...