The Real Nureyev is an intensely personal, under-the-skin depiction of ballet's greatest hero. Written by Carolyn Soutar, Nureyev's stage manager at the London Coliseum during the 1980s, it focuses on the last, intensely creative, six-year period in the dancer's life - when he was still at the peak of his powers, yet just a few years away from an untimely death.The author draws upon her own experiences and - exclusively - those of Robert Tracy, Nureyev's lover and then companion during the last 14 years of his life; Bill Akers and Roger Myers, who first met and worked with Nureyev in 1962 in Australia; and Yoko Morishita, Prima Ballerina with the Matsuyama Ballet Company, Tokyo, who partnered Rudolf for most of the '80s. From Akers and Myers, we learn of the changes in Nureyev: from a young man eager to learn, searching for perfection in a body he believed to be flawed, to the knowledgeable and difficult superstar that he would become.
They quash the rumours and set the record straight on Nureyev's relationship with Margot Fonteyn, while Morishita describes what it was like to dance with Nureyev, recalling their first meeting, their friendship both on and offstage and his pride, care and attention when teaching her certain roles. Sometimes funny, sometimes shocking, yet always deeply human, this is an intimate insider story of what the man himself was really about. It combines unique first-person accounts and reminiscences of the two aspects of his life which have been veiled from public view: Nureyev the man and lover, and Nureyev the professional at work.