"Actor: Natalya Dudinskaya"

• Nureyev | DVD | (24/11/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £11.99

  No performer on the world stage received so much acclaim and publicity as Rudolf Nureyev and no one gave away so little about their private life and thinking. In this television biography made some twelve months before his death in 1993 Nureyev tells his own story in his own words and recalls turning points in his career. The programme traces Nureyev''s life starting out from his home town of Ufa in the shadow of the Ural Mountains half way between Moscow and Siberia. When filming took place there Ufa had changed very little since his departure thirty years before. The school was still there and so was the modest wooden house which his family shared with two others. The green curtains still hung at the old theatre where he saw the ballet performance which changed the course of his life. Nureyev''s sister his head mistress and the dance teacher who first discovered him (101 years old at the time this programme was made) all recall the solitary rebel. At the Kirov Theatre the prima ballerina who was his first partner remembers the student who emerged as the most brilliant dancer of his generation. The cameras were also allowed to film Nureyev on his Mediterranean island of Li Galli which once belonged to another Russian dancer Massine. Nureyev''s dancing career has been extensively chronicled on film and television. This definitive biography incorporates extensive archive material and documents Nureyev''s career with footage of his greatest roles and the most important events in his life

• Various Artists - Stars of the Russian Ballet | DVD | (05/04/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  The second part of this three-part ballet film contains a most unusual event a one of a kind sequence in which two of the world's greatest ballerinas Galina Ulanova and Maya Plisetskaya dance together in a memorable performance of scenes from Boris Asafiev's ballet The Fountain of Bakhchisarai. This is the only filmed record of these two great dancers performing together and it provides a unique opportunity to compare their different styles.The first part of this film features Galina Ulanova in an abridged version of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Utilizing dazzling visual effects this production takes full advantage of the artistic qualities of the cinema rather than merely recording the event.The great Georgian dancer Vakhtang Chabukiani is featured in the third part of this film in scenes from Boris Asafiev's homage to the French Revolution The Flames of Paris.