Le Corsaire is a ballet typically presented in three acts, with a libretto originally created by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges loosely based on the poem The Corsair by Lord Byron. 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. All modern productions of Le Corsaire are derived from the revivals staged by the Ballet Master Marius Petipa for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg throughout the mid to late 19th century.
The ballet has many celebrated passages which are often excerpted from the full-length work and performed independently: the scene Le Jardin animé, the Pas d’esclave, the Pas de trois des odalisques, and the so-called Le Corsaire pas de deux (music mostly by Riccardo Drigo), which is among classical ballet's most famous and performed excerpts.
Synopsis Act 1 Scene 1 – A Bazaar in a Seaport Square Slave girls are among the goods for sale. Corsairs (pirates) arrive with their leader, Conrad. Watching the scene from a balcony is a young woman, Medora, the ward of the bazaar owner, Lankendem. She fashions a coded message into a bouquet of flowers, which she throws to Conrad. Later, when Medora and Lankendem go to the square, she and Conrad exchange loving glances.
At this point, Seyd Pasha, a rich buyer of slave girls, arrives in the square. Seeing Medora, he is smitten and asks to buy her. Lankendem initially refuses, but as Seyd Pasha raises his price Lankendem eventually relents. Seyd Pasha orders that Medora be delivered to his palace and leaves. Conrad promises Medora that he and his corsairs will rescue her. The corsairs begin to dance with the slave girls. At a signal from Conrad the corsairs all run off with the girls. For good measure, they also kidnap Lankendem.
Scene 2 – The Corsair's Den Medora asks Conrad to release the women slaves. To this he agrees. However, one of his men – Birbanto – objects and begins a fight. Conrad subdues him. Meanwhile, Lankendem tries to escape. The corsairs who are opposed to Conrad's release of the women convince Lankendem to stay long enough to give Conrad a flower sprayed with a sleeping potion.
Later, at dinner, Medora dances for Conrad. Lankendem gives her the flower with the sleeping potion, asking that she give it to Conrad. She does this, and when he smells the flower he falls asleep. Corsairs surround Medora, threatening her. Defensively, she stabs Birbanto in the arm and faints into the arms of the corsairs, who take her away. Conrad awakens and sets out to recapture Medora.
Act 2 Scene 3 – Harem at the Palace of Seyd Pasha The Sultana Zulina demands that the Odalisques (female concubines of the harem) respect her. For this, she is mocked by harem slave Gulnare and her friends. Seyd Pasha enters. Gulnare teases him flirtatiously in dance, and he gives her a handkerchief. She makes fun of him by passing the handkerchief around the group of women. Seyd Pasha is furious. His Keeper of the Harem attempts to distract and calm him with dancing performances by the girls. Lankendem arrives, leading Medora in delivery of her sale to Seyd Pasha. She begs Seyd Pasha for her freedom and also complains of mistreatment by Lankendem. Gulnare comforts her. Seyd Pasha offers Medora jewels, which she refuses. The Corsairs enter, disguised as robed members of a religious order. They act embarrassed at the sight of the concubines of the harem. Seyd Pasha orders the women of the harem to dance for the entertainment of his guests.
Conrad, in his disguise, recognizes Medora. The corsairs throw off their disguises and threaten Seyd Pasha with daggers. The Corsairs begin pillaging the palace. Gulnare rushes in, pursued by Birbanto. Medora recognizes Birbanto as her kidnapper and informs Conrad. She demonstrates the identification by pointing out the wound she inflicted on Birbanto's arm. Medora prevents Conrad from killing Birbanto, who then runs away. Seyd Pasha's guards enter and attack the corsairs, capturing them including Conrad. Seyd Pasha sentences Conrad to death.
Act 3 Scene 4 – Seyd Pasha's Private Room at the Palace Seyd Pasha proposes to Medora, who refuses him. As Conrad is led to his execution, Medora begs Seyd Pasha to pardon him. He agrees on the condition that she freely submit to him. He leaves the room as she considers the offer. Conrad is able to run to her; she informs him of the deal she must make to have him freed. Conrad objects and talks her out of the offer. They resolve to die together. 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. Later, as the wedding procession approaches, the bride enters covered in a veil. Seyd Pasha places a ring on the bride's finger in marriage, and the odalisques dance.
After the wedding, Seyd Pasha is alone with Medora. As she dances for him, she tells him that the pistol on his belt scares her and asks that he give it to her. He complies. She then asks for his dagger, and he hands that over also. She continues to dance to evade him. As he kneels before her and begs for her love, he hands her his handkerchief. Acting as if playfully joking, she ties his hands with the handkerchief.
At this point Conrad enters the room. He and Medora threaten Seyd Pasha, warning him not to raise a cry of alarm. They escape. Gulnare rushes into the room and unties Seyd Pasha. She shows him the ring on her finger and reveals it was she whom he had married.
Scene 5 – Corsair Ship at Sea At first the sea is calm. Birbanto is in chains. On Medora's pleas, Conrad releases him. As a storm arises, Birbanto tries to sow dissatisfaction among the crew. Conrad throws him overboard. The ship runs aground. The sea calms. Conrad and Medora are seen climbing safely on to land together.
Origins Le Corsaire was created primarily for the talents of the famous Italian ballerina Carolina Rosati, who was then the Opéra's reigning Prima ballerina. The role of Conrad—which contained no dancing in Mazilier's original staging—was created by the Italian Domenico Segarelli. Although he was an accomplished dancer, it was Segarelli's abilities as a mime artist that won him the many roles he created on the stage of the Opéra. It would not be until many years later that the role of Conrad included any dancing.
Le Corsaire in Russia
The first production Le Corsaire was first staged in Russia for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg by Jules Perrot, who served as Premier Maître de Ballet of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres from 1849 until 1858. Le Corsaire was performed for the first time on 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. For this production Petipa assisted Perrot in rehearsals, and even revised a few of the ballet's key dances.
Marius Petipa's revivals 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. The production premiered on , and included a score supplemented and revised by the composer Cesare Pugni. For this revival, Petipa also extracted a pas de deux, the Pas d'esclave, from Duke Peter Oldenbourg's score to Petipa's ballet La Rose, la violette et le papillon.
Four years later Joseph Mazilier came out of retirement to mount a revival of Le Corsaire in honor of the 1867 Exposition Universelle, given that year in Paris. The celebrated German ballerina Adèle Grantzow performed the role of Medora, while Adolphe Adam's former pupil Léo Delibes composed new music for a Pas des fleurs especially for Grantzow. The revival premiered on 21 October 1867 and was given thirty-eight performances with Grantzow as the heroine Medora. 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.
In the winter of 1867, Granztow was invited to perform with the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg by Emperor Alexander II. For her début, Petipa staged a revival of Le Corsaire, which was given for the first time on . For the production Petipa again called upon Cesare Pugni to compose music for new dances.
Petipa's third revival of Le Corsaire was staged especially for the Russian Ballerina Eugeniia Sokolova, given for the first time on .
Petipa's final and most important revival of Le Corsaire premiered on , at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. This production was mounted especially for the benefit performance of Pierina Legnani, Prima ballerina assoluta of the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres. The Prima ballerina Olga Preobrajenskaya performed the role of Gulnare, and the Imperial Theatre's Premier danseur Pavel Gerdt performed the role of Conrad.
Moscow productions of Le Corsaire In March 1858 Marius Petipa was dispatched to mount Jules Perrot's version of Le Corsaire for the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre (today known as the Bolshoi Ballet), who continued performing the ballet with some regularity for many years in various revivals. In 1888 Petipa supervised the creation of a new production of Le Corsaire for the company, which premiered to a resounding success. Petipa was a leading choreographer of the time in Russia. In 1894 the Bolshoi Theatre's newly appointed Ballet Master Ivan Clustine mounted his staging of Le Corsaire, which premiered on . Petipa would later allege that Clustine's production apparently plagiarised much of his own choreography, particularly for the scene Le jardin animé.
On 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. For this revival Gorsky supervised a substantially revised edition of Adam's score that included a myriad of new dances. 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. Among the most notable scenes added by Gorsky was a dream sequence set to a Nocturne by Chopin, in which the character Medora dreams of her beloved Conrad. Another interpolation of note was a divertissement for Turkish, Persian and Arabian slave-women that took place during the scene in the bazaar of the first act. 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.
Gorsky's revival of Le Corsaire remained in the repertory of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre until 1927. Although the company regularly performed extracts from Le Corsaire for many years thereafter, the full-length work was not given again until Konstantin Sergeyev staged his version for the company in 1992.
The Bolshoi Ballet's revival of 2007 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. Burlaka utilized the choreographic notation of the Sergeyev Collection, as well as materials found in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Bakhrushin Theater Museum and the St. Petersburg State Museum of Theatre and Music to assist in mounting a historically informed production. This version of Le Corsaire proved to be the most expensive production of a ballet ever mounted, estimated at $1.5 million USD.
Le Corsaire in Leningrad and the West