Based on Lord Byron's poem of the same name Le Corsaire is a story of love, pirates, slave traders and slave girls. Conrad, the pirate, is in love with Medora, the ward of the slave trader Lankendem but he is reluctantly forced to sell her to the Pasha. Conrad and his pirates kidnap the girl and take her to their lair. However, Conrad promises Medora all the riches in their secret cave and the pirates decide that this is treachery and so drug Conrad and return Medora to Lankendem. Conrad follows them back to the Pasha's palace, rescures Medora and escapes on his ship - which is then wrecked in a storm with only Conrad and Medora surviving.
The story is told in three acts and in fairly short time, with a lot of "specimen dances" in between for the principles and primary dancers. The music is mostly that of Adolphe Adams but has been added to with some other pieces - this is a "cleaned up" version of the ballet which has grown a bit messy over the years. Bob Ringwood's sets are amazing with a real sense of the theatrical about them and the bopat and storm sequences, plus the transitions in and out, are quite breathtaking. I juts love the "toy theatre" styling, especially in the third act ....
The ENB dancers are excellent, especially for me Junor Souza as Ali and Vadim Muntagirov as Conrad - real power and beauty in both of these performances whihc are both danced and acted. No real need to read the plot synopsis, you can follow the story just fine from what is on stage. Nice to see too that the off-line performers were acting throughout with their own storys, characters and journeys; never upstaging, just providing a more realistic backdrop to what is a highly stylised theatrical form.
I really did not know Le Corsaire before tonight and it will probably never be a fixture of the repertoire, but I am mighty glad to have seen it, a most enjoyable evening ...
p.s. to the person who sat next to me ... humming along loudly and joking with your husband that he "couldn't lift me like that" during the performance is not appropriate .. I do not want to know your opinion of ever leap and turn
p.p.s. bowing on stage should be in response to applause, not to elicit it ;-)
