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QUEENSLAND PERFORMING ARTS CENTRE AND EVENTS QUEENSLAND PRESENT
BRISBANE EXCLUSIVE
The Bolshoi Ballet:
the famous pas de deux
Written by Valerie Lawson
The pas de deux in Le Corsaire is one of the most famous moments in the classical ballet repertoire, yet it’s
confusingly mysterious in its origins and many interpretations.
From 1962, Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn entranced audiences when they danced the showcase
pas de deux, with Nureyev as Ali, the bare chested, panther-like slave, and Fonteyn as Medora, his beloved.
The final pose, with Nureyev reclining on the floor, gazing at Fonteyn in adoration, said it all about their
May-December partnership on stage, and possibly off stage.
The male variation that forms part of the pas de deux is only a minute long, yet, with its multiple pirouettes,
tucked-leg jumps and machismo poses it remains one of the most impressive and commonly performed solos
at ballet competitions worldwide.
The pas de deux – danced in the second scene of Act One – was a latecomer to Le Corsaire. The ballet was
first choreographed by Joseph Mazilier in 1866 in Paris, and adapted by Jules Perrot two years later in Russia.
But dance historians believe that the pas de deux made its first appearance in 1899 when Marius Petipa
staged the final version of his many productions of the ballet in St Petersburg.
More recent research suggests that the pas de deux was first danced in 1915, when the ballet master,
Samuil Andrianov, staged a production at the Mariinsky Theatre, St Petersburg.
Just to add more confusion, this interpolated dance was really a ‘pas de deux à trois’ for Medora, Conrad,
the pirate, and a second suitor, who had danced in the Pas d’Esclave (Slave Dance) in the first scene of Act I.
However, the slave was unnamed until the Soviet era. The cast list for a production staged in Russia by
Agrippina Vaganova in 1936 shows him as “Rhab”.
In 1955, for a new version of the ballet for the Maly Theatre Ballet in St Petersburg, the slave became “Ali”.
Over time, only Ali danced the pas de deux with Medora and it was this version that Nureyev brought to the
West after he defected from the Soviet Union in 1961.
For his revival of Le Corsaire for the Bolshoi Ballet in 2007 Alexei Ratmansky has gone back to Petipa’s 1899
production but there is no Ali. The pas de deux is danced by Medora and Conrad in the setting of a grotto,
the den of the pirates.
No matter how it is staged, the pas de deux always retains its wow factor as one of the major highlights of
Le Corsaire.
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