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THE HISTORY OF THE BALLET ''LE CORSAIRE'' Lord Byron 's ''The Corsair'' inspired several 19th century choreographers to create ballet adaptations of the work, the first most significant production was mounted by Ferdinand Albert Decombe (1789-1856), for the Ballet Of The Drury Lane Theatre in 1837, and later revived in 1844 quite successfully. The second most significant production is the most famous of all ballet adaptations of ''Le Corsaire'', surviving in the active ballet repertory for over 150 years. This staging premiered on January 23, 1856 at the old Théâtre Imperial De L´Opéra in the Rue Le Peleteir , Paris . It was was the brainchild of the ''Minister of State'', then director of the Opèra, and of the Empress Eugenie of France , who wanted to create a more superior ballet adaptation of Lord Byron 's poem than the one mounted in London by Decombe . The choreographer for this production was the Opéra's chief Balletmaster Joseph Mazilier , a man highly skilled in producing the full-length narrative ballets then in vogue, and with many successes to his credit (including Paquita , in 1844). As was typically standard practice in 19th century ballet, a literary man was commissioned to write the libretto, and here Mazilier looked to the most celebrated dramatist available, Henri Vernoy De Saint-Georges , who fashioned the scenario loosely based on Byron 's behemoth poem ( Saint-Georges crafted the scenarios for many ballets throughout his life, most notably Giselle in collaboration with Theophile Gautier in 1841, and later for Petipa's The Pharaoh's Daughter in 1862). ''Le Corsaire'' was created primarily for the Italian Ballerina Carolina Rosati , who was then the Opéra's reigning ''Prima'', celebrated for her great beauty, strong ''pointes'', clean ''batterie'', precision of execution, and easily intelligible Mime . The score was commissioned, for a phenominal fee of 6,000 Francs in addition to royalties, from Adolphe Adam , who at that time was the most distinguished composer writing for the ballet in France ( Adam is also noted for his Opera Les Toreadors , his ballet Giselle , and as his famous Christmas Carol ''O Holy Night''). The libretto went through many changes during the long months of the ballet's preperation, requiring Saint-Georges to paid an additional 3,000 Francs for the work. ''Le Corsaire'' premiered to a resounding success, with Rosati's , powerful interpretation of the heroine Medora becoming the rage of Paris . The stage effects were hailed as the best yet seen on the stage of the Opéra. Designed and executed by the master machinist Victor Sacrè , they became immortalized by Gustave Doré 's drawing of the ship-wreck from the third act. In attendance for the first three performances were Emperor Napoleon III himself, with his wife the Empress Eugenie , who had played a large part in Ballet 's gestation. So moved by ''Le Corsaire'' was the Empress that she exclaimed "In all my life I have never seen, and probably never shall see again, anything so beautiful or so moving". Adolphe Adam 's score was praised for its melodiousness, superb orchestration, and dramatic intensity. Unfortunatly it was to be the composer's last work; he died of a heart attack on May 3, 1856, four months after the ballet's premiere. On the evening of the day of his death, ''Le Corsaire'' was given at the Opèra as a memorium to Adam . This performance was attended by the royal family with thier guest of honor, King William I Of Württemberg . As equally moved by the ballet as was his wife the Empress Eugenie , the Emperor Napoleon III gave orders that all of the evening's box office receipts be given to the composer's widow. "Le Corsaire" was given 43 performances in 1856 alone with only Rosati as Medora. Her interpretation of Medora was considered by all to be incomparable, and after her departure from Paris in 1859 the ballet was taken out of the repertory. Not long afterwards Joseph Mazilier retired. ''Le Corsaire'' was then taken to then presented his own completely new revision of ''Le Corsaire'' on January 24, 1863, mounted especially for his wife, the Prima Ballerina Mariia Surovshchikova-Petipa . For this production Cesare Pugni modified the score rather extensively, as well as composing a substantial amount of new music which included a lietmotive for Medora, the ''Entrèe of Medora'', and the ''Corsaire's Mazurka'' for the second act. Four years later in . This revival premiered on October 21, 1867 to an even bigger success than the original production. This was to be Mazilier 's last work for the Ballet ; he died shortly after the ballet's premiere on April 18, 1868. Mazilier 's revival was given a total of 81 performances with Grantzow as Medora, and after her departure from Paris it was again taken out of the Opéra's repertory, never to be performed by the Parisian ballet again. Meanwhile ''Le Corsaire'' continued to be performed with great success in (this variation is danced by Medora during ''Le Jardin Animè'' in most western productions of ''Le Corsaire'', notable by Julie Kent in the popular 1999 film of American Ballet Theatre 's production of ''Le Corsaire''). ''Le Corsaire'' had been staged at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow as early as 1858 in a version later revised by the Balletmaster Ivan Clustin in 1902. It was not until after Petipa 's death that a new revival was mounted at the Bolshoi Theatre by Alexander Gorsky , premiering on January 15, 1912 with Ekaterina Geltzer as Medora and Vasily Tikhomirov as Conrad. This staging, long gone from the repertory of the Bolshoi Theatre was essentially a restaging of Petipa 's 1899 St. Petersburg production, along with revised choreography by Gorsky and new dances to the music of Vasily Soloviev-Sedoy , Rienhold Gliere , Chopin , and Tchaikovsky . Petipa retired from the Imperial Ballet in 1904, and he died in Gurzuf , Russia on July 14, 1910. His 1899 production of ''Le Corsaire'' remained in the repertory of the Imperial Ballet until 1928, where up to that point it had been performed 224 times, and was not given again for another three years. Many more stagings of ''Le Corsaire'' followed, all of which were mounted in St. Petersburg . These versions retained all of the classical dances as set down by Petipa , which by then were considered sacred, though they were not immune from revision themselves. The revisions that came along in these rstagings were done rather severely to the incidental scenes of action, while at the same time many choreographers added new dances to music from various composers. It was Agrippina Vaganova , the revered pedagogue, who in 1931 supervised a revival of ''Le Corsaire'' at the Mariinsky Theatre which replaced Petipa 's 1899 production, while in Moscow the Balletmaster Vladimir Bourmiester staged his own production for the Art Theater Of Ballet that same year. The next important revival of ''Le Corsaire'' was staged by the Balletmaster Pyotr Gusev in 1955 at the Maly Theatre Of Opera And Ballet , and was the first to present a new version of the ballet's libretto, written by Gusev and Yuri Slonimsky , the Russian ballet historian, in a version that significantly extended the prologue ( Pyotr Gusev 's new version of the prologue included the standard opening scene of Conrad's ship caught in a storm, with an additional scene set on a beach where Conrad and his party are found washed ashore by Medora, Gulnare, and their friends. Soon afterwards the woman are kidnapped by Lankendem and his cohorts, which causes Conrad and his party to go to their rescue). Originally Gusev had intended to mount this revision onto the Kirov Ballet , but they chose to retain Vaganova 's 1931 staging ( Gusev's production was also staged for the Novosibirsk Ballet in 1964, where it is still retained). In 1973, the Balletmaster Konstantin Sergeyev staged his own completely new revision of ''Le Corsaire'', which allegedly restored all of Petipa 's original dances along with many of Perrot 's (this has been called into question by many ballet historians). Oleg Vinogradov , the former director of the Maly Theatre Of Opera And Ballet , was appointed director of the Kirov Ballet in 1977, where soon afterwards he chose to replace Sergeyev's revision of ''Le Corsaire'' with his own restaging/revision of Gusev 's 1955 version. In 1989 The Kirov decided to present a revival of ''Le Corsaire'' for its upcoming world tour. There was much debate as to wether Gusev 's staging would be retained or wether Sergeyev's version would be reinstated. In the end, The Kirov chose to retain Gusev 's version, while still lavishing the production with new sets and costumes. This staging premiered to great success in New York at the Metropolitan Opera House on July 3, 1989 with the Ballerina Altynai Asylmuratova as Medora (this production was filmed at the Mariinsky Theatre in April of 1989, and has been released onto DVD/video). Sergeyev then staged a complete revival of his 1973 revision of ''Le Corsaire'' for the Bolshoi Ballet , at the invitation of Yuri Grigorovich , the company's director. This production premiered on March 11, 1992 to a resounding success, becoming Sergeyev's last work for the ballet; he died on April 1, that same year. After the great success of the premiere of Sergeyev's revival, Grigorovich then decided to stage his own version of ''Le Corsaire'', and pulled Sergeyev's staging from the Bolshoi Ballet 's repertory after only seven performances. Grigorovich's staging premiered on February 16, 1994 to great success, and is still retained in the repertory of the Bolshoi Ballet . The sets and costumes used for the Konstantin Sergeyev 's production of ''Le Corsaire'', designed by Irina Tibilova , sat unused in the archives of the Bolshoi Theatre for almost five years. At the suggestion of Sergeyev's wife, the celebrated Ballerina and teacher Natalia Dudinskaya , Anna-Marie Holmes staged Sergeyev's production of ''Le Corsaire'' for the Boston Ballet (with the assistance of Dudinskaya , Tatiana Terekhova , Sergei Berezhnoi , Tatiana Legat , and Vadim Disnitsky ). The music for this production was copied from the conductor's score used by Mariinsky Ballet , as well as additional parts taken from the Mariinsky Theatre library. The Boston Ballet music librarian Arthur Leeth, the company pianist Marina Gendal, and conductor Jonathan McPhee performed a cut-and-paste operation on the score as the choreography was adapted for the new staging. This required the reordering of many numbers, as well as a few new transitional passages which were composed by Kevin Galie . Galie also did a substantial reorchestration throughout many parts of the score primarily to the dance numbers, notably the ''Grand Pas de Trois des Odalisques'', the ''Pas d'Esclave'', and the ''Grand Pas de Deux à Trois Classique'' (AKA the ''Le Corsaire Pas de Deux''). This production premiered on March 27, 1997 with the Ballerina Natasha Akhmarova as Medora, to great success. Nearly one year later, American Ballet Theatre in New York rented the Boston Ballet 's production for its own staging of ''Le Corsaire''. The production went through even more revisions, with musical modifications done by ABT conductor Charles Parker and the company pianist Henrietta Stern. This production premiered on June 19, 1998, with Nina Ananiashvili as Medora, Ashley Tuttle as Gulnare, Giuseppe Picone as Conrad, Jose Manuel Carreño as Ali, and Malakhov Lankendem. The ABT production was later filmed at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa , California by PBS for Great Performances in 1999, with Julie Kent as Medora, Paloma Herrera as Gulnare, Ethan Steifel as Conrad, Angel Corella as Ali, and Vladimir Malakhov as Lankendem. Today the full-length ''Le Corsaire'' has been staged by many companies all over the world. It is Pyotr Gusev and Konstantin Sergeyev 's stagings that serve as the foundation for these productions, though to date there has not been a company who has chose to merge the two. Outside of Russia , primarily in western Europe and the America s, it is Sergeyev's production that has been staged primarily, while in Russia and in eastern Europe Pyotr Gusev 's revision has been staged mostly. In 1904 and 1906 Petipa 's 1899 production of ''Le Corsaire'' was documented in the Stepanov sytem of Dance Notation . As early as 1894 the scene ''Le Jardin Animè'' was recorded as well. Today this documentation, known as the Sergeyev Collection , as well as the notation of many other ballets and dances choreographed by Petipa , is housed in the Harvard University Library. In June of 2004 the School of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle presented a reconstruction of Petipa 's choreography for the scene ''Le Jardin Animè'', taken directly from the notation. It was staged by the Stepanov notation expert Douglas Fullington , and Manard Stewart . To date it is the only reconstructed portion of ''Le Corsaire'' yet staged. THE ''LE CORSAIRE'' PAS DE DEUX ), and Conrad (danced in 1899 revival by Pavel Gerdt ), with only the Slave and Medora participating in the coda. It is not known for certain who was responsible for the choreography of Aleksandr Chekrygin 's variation, though typically Petipa either had the influential teacher of the male dancers Christian Johansson choreograph the male solos, or simply let the dancer himself create his variation. In 1931 the noted pedogogue Agrippina Vaganova revised Petipa 's choreography for the ''Grand Pas de Deux à Trois Classique'' from ''Le Corsaire'' into a Pas De Deux for the graduation performance of Natalia Dudinskaya , partnered by Konstantin Sergeyev . Vaganova also revised the choreography for the Ballerina's variation, and coda, adding in more athletic and virtuoso elements. In 1939 this version of the ''Pas'' was later interpolated into Vaganova 's own 1931 revival of the full-length ''Le Corsaire'', danced by Galina Ulanova and Nikolai Zubkovsky . It was the noted dancer of the Kirov Ballet Vakhtang Chabukiani who had the biggest hand in fashioning the male dancing of the ''Le Corsaire Pas de Deux''. During his performances of the ''Pas'' in the 1930s he gave the male role more athletic and virtuoso choreographic elements, completely revising the original variation. His interpretaion of the male role became in essence the standard, and it has remained so to the present day. In 1958 Rudolf Nureyev danced the ''Le Corsaire Pas de Deux'' with Alla Sizova for thier graduation performance. For the occasion Sizova substituted the original Ballerina variation for the ''Variation of the Dryad Queen'' from Alexander Gorsky 's 1903 revival of Petipa 's ballet Don Quixote to music by Anton Simon (this music is often incorrectly credited to Léon Minkus ). In 1960 when Rudolf Nureyev staged the ''Le Corsaire Pas de Deux'' for the first time in the west, mounted especially for a Covent Garden gala for himself and Margot Fonteyen , this variation was retained. For Nureyev 's staging of the ''Pas'' the composer/conductor John Lanchbery reorchestrated Drigo 's music, as there was only a piano reduction available at that time in the west. For many years Nureyev 's staging of the ''Pas'' became the standard in the west, complete with Fonteyn's interpolated variation. In 1977 Oleg Vinogradov , artistic director of the Kirov Ballet mounted a revival of Pyotr Gusev 's 1955 revision of ''Le Corsaire''. For this staging Petipa 's original design for the ''Grand Pas de Deux à Trois Classique'' as orignally presented in 1899 was restored, though the modern choreographic alterations were still retained. When Konstantin Sergeyev 's version of ''Le Corsaire'' was staged for the Boston Ballet , and later for American Ballet Theatre by Anna-Marie Holmes in 1997 and 1998 the Ballerina's variation of the ''Le Corsaire Pas de Deux'' was substituted out yet again with a variation from Don Quixote , this time with Lèon Minkus 's rarely heard ''flower girl variation'', which Natalia Dudinskaya often danced when performing in the ''Pas''. SYNOPSIS (NOTE - The following synopsis's detail the two most prominent versions of ''Le Corsaire''. The first is of Konstantin Sergeyev 's 1973/1992 scenario, which is used mostly by western Ballet Companies (most notably by the Boston Ballet and American Ballet Theatre ). The second is of Pyotr Gusev and Yuri Slonimsky 's revised scenario, which is used mostly in Russia (most notably by The Mariinsky Ballet ). ''Characters''
SERGEYEV'S SYNOPSIS Prologue A pirate ship, manned by Conrad, his slave Ali, and his friend Birbanto, sails toward Turkey. Act I: ''The Bazaar'' Dealers and buyers fill a noisy bazaar where slave girls are being traded. Conrad and his men arrive where Lankendem, the owner of the bazaar, is selling girls. Conrad sees Medora, a slave girl, and falls immediately in love. Seyd, a Pasha, arrives on the scene amidst much fanfare. Lankendem presents three young women whom the pasha rejects. Lankendem presents Gulnare, a lovely slave girl, to the Pasha and he buys her. Lankendem then presents a young slave girl, Medora, and everyone is entranced by her beauty. The pasha buys her. Conrad instructs the slave to steal Medora back and the pirates raid the village and kidnap Lankendem. Act II: ''The Grotto'' Conrad shows Medora his hideout. Birbanto calls all the pirates to bring in their stolen bounty to the grotto, as well as the slave girls and Lankendem. Medora, Conrad, and his slave dance to entertain the crew. Afterward, Medora entreats Conrad, in the name of their love, to free all the slave girls. He agrees, but Birbanto rebels against the idea and instead persuades the pirates to riot against Conrad. By the force of Conrad's commanding personality and physical presence, he single-handedly instills terror into the hearts of the pirates and they abandon their mutinous plan. Not to be thwarted, Birbanto devises a new scheme. He sprays a rose with a sleeping potion and forces Lankendem to help him pass the flower to Medora, who unwittingly gives it to Conrad. He inhales its aroma and falls into a drugged sleep. The pirates return to the grotto and attempt to capture Medora. While struggling, she snatches a dagger and cuts Birbanto's arm. In the confusion, Lankendem steals Medora back and escapes. Birbanto is about to kill Conrad but is interrupted by the slave. Stunned and broken-hearted, Conrad discovers Medora missing. Birbanto feigns ignorance and swears his loyalty to Conrad. Act III Scene 1: ''The Pasha's Palace'' The playful Gulnare is interrupted by Lankendem bringing a veiled Medora. The Pasha is delighted that Medora has been recaptured and declares that she will become his number one wife. Scene 2: ''Le Jardin Animé''' Delighted by all his lovely women, the Pasha dreams of them in a beautiful garden. Scene 3: ''The Pasha's Palace'' Conrad and his party arrive at the palace in disguise, waking the govenor. Once inside, the maurauders attack the Pasha and his guards. After the residents flee, Medora names Birbanto as the traitor and Conrad kills him. Conrad, Ali, Medora and Gulnare all escape to the pirate ship. Scene 4: ''The Storm'' The pirate ship sails upon a calm sea. Conrad, at the helm, cradles Medora in his arms. Suddenly a fierce storm blows across as lightning illuminates the darkening sky. Gusting winds shred the sails and a lightning bolt snaps the ship's mast in half. The ship sinks amidst the relentless, turbulent waters. Epilogue As the wind subsides and the sea calms itself, the moon rises in the sky. It sheds light upon Conrad and Medora, clinging to a rock and offering thanks for their miraculous survival, a testimony to the strength of their love. GUSEV AND SLONIMSKY'S SYNOPSIS REFERENCES
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