Le Corsaire
Originally choreographed by Joseph Mazilier to the music of Adolphe Adam and other composers, it was first presented by the ballet of the Théâtre Impérial de l’Opéra in Paris on 23 January 1856.
At this point Gulnare, who is in love with Seyd Pasha, approaches the two and proposes a plan to secretly switch places with Medora in the wedding.
Seyd Pasha returns to the room where after assurances from Medora he orders Conrad to be freed and the marriage ceremony to commence.
12 January] 1858 at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre, with the Prima ballerina Ekaterina Friedbürg as the heroine Medora, and the young Marius Petipa as the corsair Conrad.
Over the course of his long career Petipa presented four revivals of Le Corsaire, each time adding a substantial number of new pas, variations and incidental dances.
His first revival was staged especially for his wife, the Prima Ballerina Maria Surovshchikova-Petipa, with the Premier danseur Christian Johansson as Conrad.
After the ballerina's departure from Paris in 1868, Le Corsaire was removed from the Opéra's repertory, never to be performed by the Parisian ballet again.
Petipa's third revival of Le Corsaire was staged especially for the Russian Ballerina Eugeniia Sokolova, given for the first time on 22 November [O.S.
This production was mounted especially for the benefit performance of Pierina Legnani, Prima ballerina assoluta of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres.
In 1894 the Bolshoi Theatre's newly appointed Ballet Master Ivan Clustine mounted his staging of Le Corsaire, which premiered on 22 March [O.S.
12 January] 1912 Alexander Gorsky, Premier Maître de Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre, presented his revival of Le Corsaire, with Ekaterina Geltzer as Medora and Vasily Tikhomirov as Conrad.
The airs of such composers as Edvard Grieg, Anton Simon, Reinhold Glière, Karl Goldmark, Frédéric Chopin, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Antonín Dvořák were fashioned into dansante accompaniment for new scenes, pas, variations, and the like.
Even with the production's large number of interpolated pieces, Gorsky chose to retain many of the additional pas as included in the ballet by Mazilier and Petipa.
On 21 June 2007 the Bolshoi Ballet presented a lavish revival of Le Corsaire staged by Yuri Burlaka and the company's director Alexei Ratmansky.
This version of Le Corsaire proved to be the most expensive production of a ballet ever mounted, estimated at $1.5 million USD.
In 1936 another revival of Le Corsaire was given by the Kirov Ballet, with Natalia Dudinskaya as Medora, Mikhail Mikhailov as Conrad, and Vakhtang Chabukiani as the Slave (or Rhab, as the character was known in Russia).
This was the first production of the full-length work to include Vaganova's 1931 revision of Le Corsaire pas de deux as staged for Dudinskaya's graduation performance.
Although the ballet master retained the traditional interpolations as handed down from Petipa's Imperial-era productions, he discarded nearly all of Adam's original 1856 score in favor of music fashioned from passages lifted from Adam's 1840 ballet L′Écumeur de mer (The Pirate) and his 1852 opera Si j’étais roi.
In 1977 the director of the Kirov Ballet, Oleg Vinogradov, staged Gusev's version for the company, who still retain the production in their repertory.
The Kirov Ballet's staging of Gusev's version of Le Corsaire was given a new production in 1989 for the company's engagement at New York's Metropolitan Opera House.
A performance of the new production was filmed that same year at the Mariinsky Theatre with the ballerina Altynai Asylmuratova as Medora, Yevgeny Neff as Conrad, Konstantin Zaklinsky as Isaac Lankendem, Yelena Pankova as Gulnare, and Farouk Ruzimatov as Ali.
Sergeyev included a new variation for the characters Conrad and Birbanto in act 1, fashioned from themes taken from Adam's original score.
In 1992 Yuri Grigorovich, director of the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow, invited Sergeyev to mount his 1973 revival of Le Corsaire for the company.
This production—which included a heavily re-edited and re-orchestrated score by the Bolshoi Theatre's conductor Alexander Sotnikov—premiered on 11 March 1992 to great success, but after only seven performances Grigorovich decided to pull the production from the repertory.
The sets and costumes designed by Irina Tibilova for Konstantin Sergeyev's 1992 Moscow production sat unused in the archives of the Bolshoi Theatre for almost five years.
The staging went through even more revisions both choreographically and musically, with modifications performed by American Ballet Theatre conductor Charles Barker and the company pianist Henrietta Stern.
On 26 January 2006, the Bayerisches Staatsballett (Bavarian State Ballet) presented a partial reconstruction of Petipa's 1899 revival of Le Corsaire with additional choreography by Ivan Liska.
For this production, twenty-five of Petipa's original dances were reconstructed from the Stepanov Choreographic Notation of the Sergeyev Collection by Doug Fullington.
On 21 June 2007 the Bolshoi Ballet presented a lavish revival of Petipa's Le Corsaire staged by Alexei Ratmansky with new choreography, which included some reconstructed elements of Petipa's dances as staged for his 1899 revival reconstructed from the choreographic notation of the Sergeyev Collection by Yuri Burlaka (also responsible for the music dramaturgy conception).
The outreach team had given an excellent pre performance talk which made good understanding for the multi cultural spectators
