English National Ballet will be the first UK company to perform a complete Le Corsaire (The Pirate), one of the great 19th Century ballet classics.
Opening in Milton Keynes 17 October 2013, and then touring to Southampton, Oxford, Bristol, London and Manchester, Tamara Rojo is taking ballet to the people, as promised.
A swashbuckling drama of captive maidens, rich sultans, kidnap and rescue, disguise and conspiracy, love and betrayal, Le Corsaire, based on Lord Byron’s 1814 poem The Corsair, tells the story of Conrad, a dashing pirate, and his love for Medora, the beautiful harem girl.
English National Ballet’s Artistic Director Tamara Rojo claims: “Le Corsaire is one of the great classics created by Marius Petipa for the Mariinsky Theatre. Like all great Russian classics it is a true epic story that offers drama, an exotic landscape and the best pyrotechnics of the classic technique.
"It’s a men’s ballet, with heroic and passionate characters and with the famous pas de deux that made a legend of Nureyev when he first performed in England with Dame Margot Fonteyn. This is a unique and unmissable opportunity as it has never before been performed by a British company.
"We are working with Anna-Marie Holmes who created this version more than a decade ago and she is willing to change it to make it specific for us. In reinventing Le Corsaire we have the chance to go through the whole narrative and look at it with fresh eyes, making it even better and personal to the Company.
"I am excited that this is a ballet with four male principal roles. Unlike many of the classics it will give great opportunities to the men in the Company to show off their skills and athleticism.
"We are also re-orchestrating the work because there have been many additions over the years. I want the music to sound more romantic and cleaner as it would have originally.
"And I am thrilled that Bob Ringwood, the amazing designer of Batman, has agreed to design the sets and the costumes.”
Further details about the tour can be found on ENB's web site.
It promises to be a thrilling event with a cast that includes Tamara Rojo and Alina Cojocaru, both formerly of the Royal Ballet, in the role of Medora, and Vadim Muntagirov as Conrad, a firecracker of a role made famous not only by Nureyev but Baryshnikov and many others, most recently by Ivan Vasiliev.
Unmissable, indeed.