Рудольф Нуреев : il faut toujours mieux ...

Rudolf Noureev nait dans un train en URSS en 1938. Très jeune, il se sent attiré par la danse, mais aussi par les garçons. Après la guerre, il devra défier l'autorité de son père qui refuse que son fils soit danseur, lui préférant des activités plus viriles. Il suivra des cours en cachette et quittera même le foyer familial. C'est seul et sans argent qu'il va se battre pour réaliser son rêve d'être danseur. Il y parviendra grâce à l'aide de ses professeurs qui le prendront en charge, car il présente des prédispositions exceptionnelles. En 1959, il est embauché par la prestigieuse troupe du Kirov à Leningrad.  L'homosexualité étant fortement réprimée en URSS, il devra cacher ses goûts et évitera tout rapport, ce qui n'empêchera pas la police russe de le ficher comme tel. C'est en 1961, lors d'un déplacement de la troupe du Kirov à Paris, qu'il choisira de ne plus retourner en URSS et demandera l'asile politique à la France qui lui accordera. Rudolf Noureev signe un contrat avec la troupe du Marquis de Cuevas. Que ce soit à l'Opéra de Paris ou au théâtre des Champs Elysées, chacune de ses représentations est un triomphe. L'URSS multipliera les pressions pour qu'il retourne en Russie, mais sa vie sera définitivement partagée entre Paris, Londres et les capitales occidentales. En 1983, il est embauché par l'Opéra de Paris en tant que Directeur de la Danse, chorégraphe et danseur. Il va exceller dans ces trois métiers et hisser la troupe de l'Opéra de Paris au sommet des troupes les plus prestigieuses du monde. Rudolf Noureev aura aussi de très nombreux amants dont les danseurs Robert Tracy et Erik Bruhn, danseur étoile du ballet Royal du Danemark, qui restera probablement son plus grand amour. Au début des années 80, Rudolf Noureev découvre sa séropositivité et il va se battre contre le Sida durant une dizaine d'années sans jamais arrêter de danser et de travailler. Il aura l'occasion de retourner dans son pays natal en 1989 sur la scène du Kirov à Leningrad (Saint Petersbourg) et retrouvera sa mère qu'il n'avait plus revue depuis 1961. A la fin de sa vie, la maladie contrariant de plus en plus son métier de danseur, il va s'orienter vers la direction d'orchestre et diriger le Métropolitan Opéra de New-York. Le 8 octobre 1992, il apparait pour la dernière fois sur la scène de l'Opéra de Paris pour la première de la Bayadère, soutenu par ses danseurs devant un public bouleversé qui va lui faire une dernière ovation. Il décède du Sida le 6 janvier 1993 à l'âge de 54 ans. Il est enterré au cimetière russe de Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois tout près de la tombe de Serge Lifar.

Tchaikovsky: Tragic Gay Composer

Until recently, Russian musicologists have long denied that composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky(1840-1893) was a gay man. He had a string of relationships with men, back from his student days up until his death. Tchaikovsky had a distinct taste for younger men, and his lovers included poets, musicians, servants and other members of the lower classes. Several sources report that when traveling abroad he sometimes used male prostitutes for sexual gratification.

Tchaikovsky was tormented by his suppressed homosexuality and the constant fear of exposure. Although he married one of his students, his attempt at straight family life was disastrous. Even though they remained married, he and his wife had no children and did not live together. Within two weeks of his wedding Tchaikovsky tried to kill himself, hoping to catch pneumonia by plunging himself into the Moscow River. At the urging of his doctor, he fled to St. Petersburg and never saw his wife again, although he continued to support her. She had several children by other men, giving each infant to an orphanage; she spent her final twenty-one years in a home for the certifiably insane.

All of Tchaikovsky’s successes were musical. He enjoyed world-wide fame, and the czar bestowed honors upon him and even granted him a life-long pension. The most significant of these awards was when Czar Alexander III conferred upon him the Order of St. Vladimir, which conveyed hereditary nobility. Tchaikovsky went on to achieve the greatest degree of popularity ever accorded a Russian composer. In 1891 he even conducted the inaugural concert at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.

Modest, his brother, was also gay. In an exchange of letters between the brothers, Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality is confirmed and openly acknowledged. Tchaikovsky had a nephew nicknamed “Bob” – Vladimir Lvovich Davïdov (1871-1906) – to whom he dedicated the Symphonie Pathétique (1893). The photo at left shows Tchaikovsky seated next to his nephew.

Bob, who was thirty-one years his junior, became Tchaikovsky’s lover from the late 1880s. Tchaikovsky was usually homesick during his musical tours abroad, hating the loneliness of large cities; he always longed to get back home to be with his beloved nephew, whom he called “my idol.” Tchaikovsky made Bob his heir, and his letter to Bob from a hotel room in London in May 1893 shows the nature of their relationship: “I am writing to you with a voluptuous pleasure. The thought that this paper is soon going to be in your hands fills me with joy and brings tears to my eyes.” In another letter Tchaikovsky wrote to his nephew, “If only I could give way to my secret desire, I would leave everything and go home to you.”

In late 1893 Count Stenbok-Fermor wrote a letter addressed to Tsar Alexander III complaining of the attentions the composer was paying the Duke's young nephew. Exposure would have meant public disgrace, loss of civil rights and exile to Siberia for Tchaikovsky and for his fellow former students of the School of Jurisprudence. According to some reports, the letter was intercepted, and a court of honor of the “old boys” of the school required Tchaikovsky to kill himself; Tchaikovsky promised to comply with their demand. A day or two later his “illness” was reported (Tchaikovsky poisoned himself in an act of suicide), and official accounts reported a death from cholera (Tchaikovsky’s relatives later confirmed the account of suicide, also relating that Tsar Alexander III was shown the incriminating letter from Stenbok-Fermor after Tchaikovsky’s death). When he died, at fifty-three, sixty thousand people applied for tickets to his funeral, which was paid for by the Tsar; for only the third time in Russian history, a Tsar ordered a state funeral for a commoner.

There are many theories about the actual cause of Tchaikovsky's death – both natural (cholera) and by suicide (poisoning). Conflicting reports arose within days of his death. Suicide would have been a crushing blemish on the reputations of both Tchaikovsky and his countrymen. Nevertheless, Tchaikovsky was adored in his native Russia, and he was perhaps the best cultural ambassador Russia had ever had.

Thirteen years after Tchaikovsky’s demise, his nephew “Bob” tragically took his own life, as well.