If score cards were allowed in ballet, some perfect 10s would have been handed out to the opening cast of American Ballet Theatre's Corsaire. To Angel Corella (Ali) spinning and dipping through razor-sharp pirouettes; to Gillian Murphy (Medora) folding a jaw-dropping extravagance of quadruple turns into her second act fouettés; and to Marcelo Gomes (Conrad) burning up space with his flaring jetés and flaring nostrils.
The whole company were determined to rock the stage, and Corsaire was the ideal ballet for them to show off their tricks - especially in the Soviet-based staging that ABT dance. In contrast to the leisureliness and opulence of the older Imperial Russian production (shown recently by the Bolshoi), this Corsaire strips its story down to the most basic elements: Conrad's saving of Medora from the clutches of the lecherous Seyd Pasha, the slippery opportunism of slave-dealer Lankendem in returning her to the Pasha's harem, and the final preposterous rescue plot involving pirates dressed up as Mecca-bound pilgrims.
Proust it ain't (and it's definitely not Byron, on whose poem the ballet is tokenly based), but in many ways the production's broad narrative strokes exemplify the best and worst of ABT's style. Some of the company's finest moments can be seen in the dancing of Murphy, sweetly grinning as she dares herself to ever more airborne feats in her second act pas de deux with Gomes.
Attack can easily look like crude force however, and many of the men have the unattractive habit of underlining their big moves - jacking their legs higher in arabesque or slamming their backs into a deeper arch - to court applause at the expense of phrasing and music. The exception is Herman Cornejo, who graces the roguish Lankendem with dancing of such fluent, witty phrasing that the character's one-dimensional villainy takes on a glitter and sophistication not seen elsewhere on the stage.
Corsaire is meant to be silly and fun, but Cornejo shows us that when the ballet is danced in full classical style it can also acquire a delicious blend of irony, charm - even beauty. The visionary Jardin Animé scene should be an opulent blossoming of 19th-century dance. But the company's functional style, lacking the decorative detail of eyes, shoulders, hands and feet that Petipa originally intended, reduce this gorgeous set piece into a circus-like trompe l'oeil.
