パリ・オペラ座バレエ団評（3/19付）で、標記文から一部引用した。ブルノンヴィル派の受容とその意味について簡潔に書かれているので、全文を引用する。同書は Vivi Flindt と Knud Arne Jurgensen が、ブルノンヴィルの５０のアンシェヌマンを選択・再構成したもので、1992年に DANCE BOOKS から出版された（映像付き）。
Foreword
by Rudolf Nureyev
When dancing one exists totally. The inconceivable becomes obvious when body and soul melt together in the hypnotic embrace of dance movement. To be able to reach this point it is necessary to learn and master certain rules.
One can dance within many different styles of movement; one of the most beautiful is that of classical ballet. For myself there are two main streams within classical ballet which stand out by the intensity and purity of their cultivation ― these are the French-Russian style of Marius Petipa, and the French-Danish style of the school of August Bournonville.
The great Russian teacher Agrippina Vaganova learned the Bournonville School and repertoire during her early years of study in the 1890s with one of Bournonville’s foremost pupils, the Swedish-born dancer Per Christian Johansson, who became a leading teacher at the Imperial ballet school in St Petersburg from 1860 until his death in 1903. After Johansson’s death, however, the Bournonville School and repertoire was excluded by Vaganova from the teaching at the Vaganova School.
When I first came to the West from Russia, my very first desire was to go to Copenhagen to study and learn the famous Bournonville School and its very special training. As is well known, I had the opportunity to study with the late great Danish dancer, Erik Bruhn, whose honest, ascetic and academic devotion to the art of ballet was a wonderful inspiration and challenge during my formative years as an artist. Eager to learn and become familiar with the six daily Bournonville classes and the repertory of his many different ballets, I found here a completely new world of dance of an extraordinary musicality, and with the most unusual enchainements, which I very much wanted to explore and to take for a model.
With great admiration for this special Danish heritage, I have always included Bournonville’s choreography in my repertory in order to broaden the knowledge of his art amongst the general audience. For many years I wanted to bring the Bournonville School back to the Paris Opera, thereby giving the French style back to French soil, although this proved to be a more complicated task than one might have thought. For a long time I spoke to deaf ears.
During my performing career I have tremendously enjoyed dancing Bournonville’s choreography, such as the Flower Festival Pas de deux and Conservatoriet and I have particularly enjoyed portraying the character of James in La Sylphide, which I had the great pleasure to perform on a number of occasions in Bournonville’s own theatre, the Royal Theatre of Copenhagen.
Bournonville himself kept alive his connections with the French ballet throughout his life. This is witnessed by his vast life-long correspondence with his close friend and colleague, Jules Perrot, which began during his early years in Paris. These extremely interesting letters testify to Bournonville’s great devotion to the French school, and to its dance style as taught by Auguste Vestris.
I am delighted to introduce this book by Vivi Flint and Knud Arne Jurgensen, which I believe will open new frontiers for dancers all over the world. I feel sure that the fifty ‘new’ original Bournonville School, thereby bringing renewed life and interest into Bournonville’s work. This book also contains much valuable material that will be of great benefit to future generations of classical dance artists throughout the international dance world.
