The first and latest Corsaire
For any serious ballet company, Le Corsaire is a milestone piece to perform. It requires an equally strong male and female corps de ballet to back up the lead characters whose roles require strong techniques as well. Thus, when Ballet Manila was able to stage the full-length piece in 1998 with the help of Krasnoyarsk Ballet, it sent a signal of the young company’s ambitions for the future.
Leading the charge then was BM’s principal dancer OsiasBarroso Jr. as Conrad with Pamela Asprer as his Medora. Andrei Asinyarov was their Ali.
Two years later, the company restaged the swashbuckling ballet with an all-Filipino cast and has done so six more times since then.
The latest performance of Le Corsaire was in 2018 with principal dancers Mark Sumaylo and Abigail Oliveiro as Conrad and Medora. Ali was performed by then soloist Rudolph Capongcol.
As Ballet Manila prepares for a new staging of Le Corsaire — a version choreographed by artistic director Lisa Macuja Elizalde — on February 24 and 25 at the Aliw Theater, we look back at the company’s first and latest performances of this beloved pirate adventure.
