What Britain lost

Rudolf Nureyev revitalised French ballet. John Percival reveals that he might have done the same in Britain

The Royal Ballet's special programmes this month, honouring Rudolf Nureyev 10 years on from his death, would have been very different if there had been a successful outcome to talks he had with their management a quarter of a century ago. That was when, unknown to most, the Royal Opera House suggested he might become director of the Royal Ballet. Even his protégée Sylvie Guillem seems unaware of this. In an interview in The Guardian last week she said "he was really sad that they never asked him to be their director".

He was indeed sad, and said so forcefully and often, not just about times when the company ignored him as a dancer after years of eager service. I believe from remarks he made to me on various occasions that not landing the directorship disappointed him. Sir John Tooley, then general director of the ROH, last week confirmed the existence of these negotiations.

The Royal Ballet needed a new director in the mid-Seventies and approached Nureyev. Tooley remembers several discussions with him, in which Nureyev finally said that he would like the job but would also need to continue dancing. He never made any secret of his need to be on stage, but he also needed a fall-back if he proved unsuited to directing. Tooley answered that if Nureyev continued dancing to the extent he wanted, this simply wouldn't meet the company's needs. End of negotiations.

We can have a good idea of how he would have run the Royal Ballet from what he did in Paris when he became director of the Ballet de l'Opéra there in the 1980s. They had actually approached him way back in the spring of 1971. All went smoothly until Nureyev unexpectedly demanded to be allowed to bring several Royal Ballet dancers with him to replace others already there.

Anyone familiar with the present condition of the Paris and London companies might wonder at such a demand, but that's because of changes since 1971 on both sides of the Channel. I remember there were some great soloists then in Paris, but often doing dull works and with a none-too-great sense of discipline in the supporting corps. Yet the Royal Ballet had reached an all-time peak under its first two directors, Ninette de Valois and Frederick Ashton, aided since 1963 by Nureyev's presence.

To a company as strongly unionised as the Paris one, however, and as proud of its attached ballet school, Nureyev's suggestion was unthinkable. End of negotiations, although happily not of his links with the company. He continued appearing there as guest star, and also staged some of his productions for them while working with other companies, including of course the Royal (which since he arrived in the West had been the nearest he had to a home base).

Yet, much as he loved the Royal Ballet, Paris became his last home when the Ballet de l'Opéra finally signed him up in 1982 as director, dancer and choreographer. I reckon the six seasons he spent in charge there were the most rewarding of his whole career, because he not only continued to give thrilling performances, but also transformed the company out of all recognition. In fairness, the process had already started under those in charge during the Seventies: a group of highly promising young dancers had arrived, and repertoire and discipline had improved. But building on that base, Nureyev brought the Ballet de l'Opéra to a level of excellence it had not enjoyed for more than a century, and made it one of the world's greatest companies again. So, the fascinating question for us is what could he have achieved if he had become director of the Royal Ballet.

It might have been harder for him in London, with smaller funds (and the notoriously interfering ROH board) to improve working conditions and increase the number of performances as he did in Paris, or to secure the television programmes and videos he achieved there every year. But he had both determination and ingenuity, so it might not have been impossible.

He once told me he remembered which ballets and which combinations had worked best out of all the RB programmes during his time, and that he would like to select from them. He could have widened and improved our choice of classics, too. Don't judge his version of Don Quixote, for instance, from Ross Stretton's miserable restaging at Covent Garden last year; when properly done, it scintillates. We could have had his immensely grand treatment of La Bayadère. And imagine a full Corsaire, or his complete Raymonda; I recall him discussing what might be made of Petipa's long neglected first big hit, The Pharaoh's Daughter.

In Paris he put on two versions of an evening by the English choreographer Antony Tudor, very under-represented at Covent Garden. And, in addition to his own pieces, he commissioned ballets not only by established choreographers but by some of the younger Americans, including the then unknown William Forsythe, besides various French outsiders – and brought in the revolutionary talent of Michael Clark. He had the most valuable (but all too rare) quality for a director: imagination.

Above all, there was Nureyev's effect on the dancers. Already in London, his friendly advice and challenging productions had contributed to the Royal Ballet's progress. As director he could have worked with the dancers, and (as in Paris) picked out the promising youngsters. Our dancers could say that "he taught us to push our bodies to the limit, to be totally engaged". Those words are from Laurent Hilaire, a Paris star who is taking part in the Royal Ballet's tribute. His comrade Manuel Legris adds "I think of him every day, at the barre, on stage; I 'correct my position' as if his look was following me. His words are always present in my spirit". The present Paris director Brigitte Lefèvre says still, 10 years on, "every revival, every performance, is a new challenge, an event, a meeting with Rudolf Nureyev". And to think that these benefits could have been ours in London.