Premiere of Adolphe Adam's ballet choreographed by Joseph Mazilier – 23 January 1856, Opéra de Paris
Premiere of the ballet staged by Marius Petipa – 24 January 1863, Mariinsky Theatre
Premiere of Pyotr Gusev's version – 29 April 1987, Kirov Opera and Ballet Theatre (Mariinsky Theatre)
Running time: 2 hours 30 minutes
The performance has two intervals
The plot of the ballet Le Corsaire contains all the components required to make it a success with the audience: a story about pirates with a shipwreck, abductions, loving passions and perfidious treachery... Moreover there is the variety of the cast and the choreography, the oriental flavour of the vivid costumes, the exotic character dances and the triumphant harmony of classicism. It is not by chance that this ballet has been in the international repertoire for more than a century and a half. It traces its roots back to the mid 19th century, when the composer Adolphe Adan wrote a score based on the plot of George Byron's poem The Corsair, while the choreographer Joseph Mazilier created the dances and in 1856 staged his production at the Opéra de Paris. Since then who has not laid his or her hands on it. New scenes appeared in the ballet, the score came to feature musical extracts by other composers and, in a word, Le Corsaire set out on an independent voyage taking in the stages of Europe. It came to St Petersburg thanks to the choreographer Jules Perrot, and Marius Petipa ennobled the loudly-screeching diversity of the Eastern bazaar with the refined classical scene Le Jardin animé. To us, too, Le Corsaire has come down as a colourful marathon of varied dances, intermingled with pantomime explanations of the relationships between the characters. The dances in the production involve the corps de ballet as well as the soloists. The choreography presents, in all its beauty, the expressive means of virtuoso classical dance, both female and male: in the ballet there are two ballerina roles and three male principal roles. And the few young dancers do not dream of dazzling with virtuoso technique in the variations and duets in this ballet, of interrupting well-earned applause with their perfect performance of fouettés or diagonals that stun the imagination with their flying tricks. Olga Makarova
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