HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 258

also worked in neoclassical and modern idioms,
representing every major 20th-century choreog-
rapher. Despite his versatility, it is as a supreme
exponent of the classical school in ballet that he
made his international reputation, both with his
own performances and through the many imag-
inative productions that he mounted with West-
ern companies-including La Bayadère, Raymonda,

Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote (of
which he also directed a film), The Nutcracker, and
Romeo and Juliet. In 1982, he became an Austrian
citizen, and served as director of the Paris Opera
Ballet from 1982 to 1989. Nureyev returned for
the first time to the Soviet Union in November
1987, and danced again at the Kirov, the scene of
his first triumphs, in November 1989.