Regarded as the finest danseur noble of his generation, Ivan Nagy concluded an illustrious career at the summit of American Ballet Theatre, where as premier danseur he was the preferred partner of many of that once august company's stellar ballerinas, including Natalia Makarova (whom he partnered as Albrecht in her American debut as Giselle) the lithe and elegant Cynthia Gregory, and the tempestuous and controversial Gelsey Kirkland.
In 1978, Nagy left the celebrated company to establish a new career, but he soon found that his calling was in the world of the classics of grand romantic ballet. Following a few teaching assignments, he accepted the invitation to become artistic director of the Ballet de Santiago of Chile, which he recently brought to New York's City Center for the troupe's American debut. After a mere four years, he has transformed that provincial company into a tight ensemble of international standing and they have been invited back for a future season.
Several days after the New York engagement, the Cincinnati/New Orleans Ballet--an eleventh-hour creation designed to preserve two important, but struggling, regional dance companies--announced that Nagy would assume the position of its artistic director. However, during this three year contract he intends to remain on a close basis with his South American company as well.
The trend toward consolidation is a significant one, as indicated by the bicoastal home basing of the Joffrey Ballet in both New York and Los Angeles, the joint headquarters of the Murray Louis and Alvin Nikolais Dance Companies in Manhattan, and the congregation of vulnerable troupes around both the Joyce Theatre and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
I met with Ivan Nagy during his very well received visit with the Chilean company, having seen him perform many times in both City Center and the Metropolitan Opera House with Makarova and his other leading ladies. The father of two teenaged daughters, he is a modest, down-to-earth artist who knows himself and who has found happiness in his chosen work. Also a gentleman of global caliber, Nagy told me the story of his life, his struggles, and his successes, without any of the pyrotechnics often expected of the great stars of that most physical of the creative languages, the art of ballet. He is a story that should serve as inspiration for any aspiring dancers, as well as a lesson in the ways of the world.
Gregory Speck: What is your first memory from Budapest during World War II?
Ivan Nagy: I was born in Debrecur in 1943. My earliest memory is very, very vague, but I recall hearing sirens and running down into the basement of the house during air raids when the planes would come in very low. But these are flashbacks, not vivid memories. Just echoes. I will never forget seeing Visconti's The Damned, which disturbed me enormously, for it brought back forgotten memories. I had nightmares for weeks and weeks after seeing it. It was an incredible movie, but it did something personally for me by scratching up recollections that I had blocked out.
Speck: When I interviewed Era Marton, she told me of her harsh memories of crossing the Danube after the war and losing her shoes in the
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