Seldom have I been as moved by a documentary as by ‘Nureyev’. What touched me?
It was a story I thought I knew – Margot Fonteyn was the glittering star of English ballet but was now no longer young. Already in her forties she was considered in the twilight of her career…but suddenly partnered with the young Russian defector Rudolf Nureyev, the end turned out to be just the beginning.
It is often said that their legendary chemistry was a meeting of opposites – Fonteyn: elegance and restraint; Nureyev: animalistic and explosive. But watching them again in the magical footage in this documentary it is clear to me that they brought out something hidden in the other’s nature – Fonteyn’s passion, long held in check and Nureyev’s tenderness.
The on and offstage love affair that followed, on paper rather unlikely, reveals again the great complexities of the human heart.
