In what kind of vehicle was Nureyev born in 1938?
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Train
His mother was travelling with the children to join his father, an officer in the Red Army.
💡 Did you know? The train was on the Trans-Siberian Railway, near Irkutsk.
All questions with answers
In which city did Nureyev spend his childhood and youth?
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Ufa
There, as a child, he saw his first ballet at the opera house and from then on wanted only to dance.
💡 Did you know? He took his first steps in Bashkir folk dance groups.
Which company did Nureyev join as a soloist in 1958, before he went to the West?
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Kirov Ballet
He had only started at the Leningrad ballet school at seventeen, unusually late for a dancer.
💡 Did you know? Soon after graduating he was dancing the great leading roles there.
In which year did Nureyev defect to the West in Paris?
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1961
On a Kirov tour he was suddenly to be sent back to Moscow; he asked the French police for protection.
💡 Did you know? The newspapers called his escape the leap to freedom.
With which Royal Ballet prima ballerina did Nureyev form a celebrated partnership from 1962?
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Margot Fonteyn
She was 42 and he was 23; the partnership extended her career by many years.
💡 Did you know? In 1963 Frederick Ashton created the ballet “Marguerite and Armand” for the two of them.
In which ballet did Fonteyn and Nureyev first appear together in 1962?
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Giselle
The performance at the Royal Opera House in London ended with a flood of curtain calls.
💡 Did you know? Nureyev danced Count Albrecht and Fonteyn the title role.
Which country granted Nureyev citizenship in 1982?
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Austria
He had close ties to the Vienna State Opera, where he often danced and staged ballets.
💡 Did you know? In Vienna in 1964 he and Fonteyn took 89 curtain calls after “Swan Lake”.
Which company did Nureyev run as director of ballet from 1983 to 1989?
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Paris Opera Ballet
He staged the great classics there in his own versions and kept dancing himself.
💡 Did you know? In 1984 he made the nineteen-year-old Sylvie Guillem an étoile.
Which ballet did the gravely ill Nureyev stage in 1992 as his last work at the Paris Opera?
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La Bayadère
At the premiere in October 1992 he could barely stand.
💡 Did you know? That same evening France’s culture minister made him a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres.
In which year did Rudolf Nureyev die?
Show answer
1993
He died at 54 of complications from AIDS.
💡 Did you know? His grave in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois is covered with a mosaic that looks like an oriental carpet.
Foto: Allan warren · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Who is shown here?
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Rudolf Nureyev
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