Mario Bois (Musical Editions Mario Bois), described the day in 1989 when Rudolf Nureyev arrived in his office announcing his intention to re-stage The Bayadère using the complete original score of Ludwig Minkus, the official ballet composer of both the Bolshoi and Kirov companies.

"When I reminded him that it was not available outside Russia, he simply smiled telling me not to worry because he'd see to it", said Bois. "The next thing I knew", Bois continued, "was when Rudolf staggered into my office with what appeared to be the whole score of several ballets. He had been to Russia on Gorbachev's invitation for a lightening 48 hour visit, and amidst all his commitments with ceremonies, ballets, and meetings, he'd managed to get hold of photo-copies of Minkus' original score!"

"Goodness knows how he found the time", said Mario Bois, "but when I looked closely, I found that his photocopies had been made vertically instead of horizontally, as the machine had evidently been too small for the large manuscript. Consequently, each page had been photocopied twice, but none of the sheets of music corresponded to the next. In his hurry, Rudolf hadn't worried about the order, and nothing had been numbered."

"It was like a jigsaw puzzle, but after we got Act 1 together, we discovered that many other pages were barely legible as the machine had obviously been running out of ink..... and that on others, Minkus had only written piano music. Worse, while there were only one or two notes on some sheets, it seemed complete pages were missing. The work of reconstruction was diabolical, for we had an ocean of pages almost impossible to read."

"The main problem was the orchestration, which Rudolf couldn't write. He wanted John Lanchbery, who was so happy to help him, that he arrived almost immediately."

"But that wasn't all", Bois recollected, "for the evening before Lanchbery's arrival with his own incomplete score, I suddenly realised there was no piano at Rudolf's flat for them to work on."

"No piano. harpsichord", stated Rudolf.

"I remember looking at him in amazement. Beautiful though his harpsichord was, it was 18th century, and not properly tuned. I pointed out it was hardly suited to work out a whole ballet score."

"No piano. Harpsichord."

"In despair, it occurred to me that one of my children had a small electric organ; if Rudolf was adamantly against renting a piano, it was easily transportable, and certainly more practical than an antique harpsichord, and so there they were, John Lanchbery and Rudolf Nureyev working day and night on one tattered score and one incomplete one, on my son's electric organ!"

"Listening to the pair of them reading the music together must have been rather like watching Petipa with Tchaikovsky," recalled Bois, "for Rudolf started pouncing on certain melodies - identifying a pas de deux, then cutting things here, adding bars there, wanting a woman's variation where there was none. John's contribution was to find the linking material and ensure harmonisation with the barest of changes. After they'd sorted out the piano music, they began with the orchestration, and remaining very respectful to Minkus, put together a solid musical text in the six months before rehearsals began."

How sad then, that the Orchestre de l'Opéra National de Paris, directed by Vello Pahn, couldn't have shown a little of that respect not only to Minkus, but also to Nureyev, Lanchbery, and the exceptional dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet.

On one of the evenings I was there, it was rumoured that the troupe had been hit by sickness and injury, but this was not evident. It was the motley collection of musicians in the orchestra pit who were ravaged by some vicious form of sleeping sickness, not that it prevented a smirking group from playing "footsie" during the overture. On another occasion, some were singing. And as far as their playing was concerned, at times they were barely audible, so much so, that it was reported that Isabelle Guèrin (who created the role of Nikiya in 1992), threatened to leave because she couldn't hear the music.

It is a curious thing, but given Stravinsky or Prokofiev, the orchestra have no problems. They also tackle Wagner reasonably well. In the past, Lanchbery has occasionally had problems with orchestras who have deliberately played "ballet music" badly. Those concerned would do well to listen to Daniel Barenboim, who recently conducted Tchaikovsky for the Berlin State Opera Ballet, or the Bolshoi or Kirov orchestras, where the quality of the music is one of the highspots of the evening.

As long ago as 1838, Theophile Gautier wrote that the very word "bayadère" evoked "sunshine, perfume, and beauty. His article spoke of the "dreams in the form of shuttered pagodas, idols of jade, and jewelled elephants with howdahs on their backs", as in Petipa's ballet. And no one has re-staged Petipa's works quite like Rudolf Nureyev. His elephant is blue and gold, turquoise, silver and white, the very colours of the Kirov Theatre. It is a wondrous creature which fires the imagination as does this last, great reconstruction of Rudolf Nureyev.

But how extraordinary that it was a Russian who brought back to France what a Frenchman had given to Russia.


Photo centre page : ICARE / Moatti

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Patricia Boccadoro writes on dance in Europe. She contributes to The Observer and Dancing Times and was dance consultant to the BBC Omnibus documentary on Rudolf Nureyev. Ms. Boccadoro is the dance editor for Culturekiosque.com.

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