THE DARING YOUNG MAN

The ovation at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris began even before the curtain went
up. Simply the announcement of his name threw the audience into a frenzy. When he stepped
onstage he was greeted with a burst of applause that went on for half a minute; after he
danced he took 30 curtain calls. It was 1961, and Rudolf Nureyev was giving his first
performance in the West after his defection.Last October, after the premiere of a new
production of "La Bayadere" he had choreographed for the Paris Opera Ballet, he stepped
onstage for the last time. Rumors that he was sick with AIDS had been circulating for years;
now he was so frail he had to be supported by two dancers. But the moment he appeared the
stage was bombarded with flowers, and the theater rang with cheers and applause that didn't
let up for a full 10 minutes. Here was frenzy of a different sort-no longer laced with
anticipation and excitement, but abounding in love, gratitude and a wealth of memories. The
substance of Nureyev's career ended long before he died last week at 54 in Paris; his death
didn't change the dance world, But his life certainly did.There had been sensational dancers
before Nureyev's Western debut-Nijinsky, most prominently-and sensational dancers came
along later, especially Mikhail Baryshnikov. But nobody has ever set the public afire the way
Nureyev did in his prime. The raw vigor of his flamboyant leaps, the animal rapture that
propelled him in huge turns around the stage, the passion that smoldered as he bent over his
partner-it was all excess, and it was all gorgeous. People screamed in their seats. In a dance
world accustomed to George Balanchine's first law-"Ballet is woman"-Nureyev made ballet
male. In doing so he introduced startling new possibilities, not only for glamour and
excitement but for genuine drama on the ballet stage. His history-making partnership with
Margot Fonteyn, crown jewel of Britain's Royal Ballet and 18 years his senior, exemplified
the new order at its most exalted. Ballet was never more gripping, never more transporting,
than when her perfect poise met his ardent theatricality.Nureyev was born in 1938 on a train,
speeding along the banks of Lake Baikal near Mongolia-a fitting start to a life that would be
forever on the move. His mother was on her way to join his father, a soldier. Eventually the
family settled in Ufa, a remote provincial capital. "My chief memory is of hunger-consistent
hunger," he wrote in an autobiographical account. His first glimpse of ballet came during a
New Year's Eve performance by the local ballet troupe, an event that turned his heart and
mind irrevocably toward dancing. He studied with local teachers, but he couldn't begin
serious training until he was 17, when he finally managed to get himself to the Kirov Ballet
school in Leningrad. After three fervent years of study he joined the company. His talent and
his rebellious spirit made him well known to the authorities, especially after he made a
vociferous, though futile, argument in favor of nurturing artistic individuality.Nureyev bolted
for freedom in June 1961, as the Kirov was waiting at Le Bourget airport outside Paris to
board a flight for London. His Paris performances had been received with great enthusiasm,
so when the company director told him he was not flying to London after all-he was being
summoned home to dance at the Kremlin-he knew the authorities feared he would defect.
Two French police inspectors were standing nearby. He rushed into their arms and gasped, "I
want to stay!"For the next three decades, he danced-virtually nonstop, as if his childhood
deprivations had made him ravenous for movement. He toured with ballet companies and
pickup troupes, he devoured the classics and then went on to such contemporary masters as
Martha Graham, Paul Taylor and George Balanchine. He turned to choreography and restaged
such classics as "Swan Lake" and "Sleeping Beauty" to give greater glory to the male roles.
He never made a permanent home with any company, although after an electrifying
appearance with the staid and gracious Royal Balletin "Giselle" he became a longtime guest
artist with the troupe. ("It was as if a wild animal had been let loose in a drawing room,"
wrote a British journalist about his London debut.) For six years he directed the Paris Opera
Ballet; even then, he continued dancing. At night, he geared up in fashionable leathers and hit
the clubs, often with friends from the Andy Warhol crowd. Once, after a 1967 performance in
San Francisco, he was carousing with Fonteyn in the Haight-Ashbury district when the police
arrived in response to a noise complaint, sending the guests fleeing. The police found the two
hiding on nearby rooftops; they spent five hours in jail before being bailed out.During the
1970s, as he approached 40, critics started asking him when he was going to quit. He hated
the question, but his performances were becoming threadbare. His technique had always been
patchy, probably owing to his late start; what he lacked in form and placement he made up for
in power and magnetism. Inevitably, those gifts faded with age. His performances grew
worse, then became grotesque. He wouldn't stop. "I am still going strong," he insisted last
year. "The critics? I ignore them."What began in splendor was ending in pathos. The dancing
was agony to watch, the choreography too bombastic to be a lasting legacy. In the end,
perhaps death saved that part of Nureyev he most treasured-the Nureyev of legend. May his
memory soar.