Le Corsaire, at the Scala in Milan a new production of the famous ballet in the version signed by Manuel Legris

The ballet is based on the poem in verse The Corsair of Lord Byron, published in 1814, a partially autobiographical work of extraordinary success, which immediately sold out the first printing of 10,000 copies. Extremely popular throughout the nineteenth century, the poem inspired - in addition to various ballets and pantomimes - also The Corsair, melodrama of greens (1848).

The Corsair has a rather complex history: the ballet corpus has gone through a very long time span passing through the hands of numerous choreographers and composers who have added, modified and invented. In the 1826 in Milan It is in the 1837 in London two first versions appear on the scene, respectively The Corsair of Giovanni Galzerani is The Corsair of Ferdinand Albert, in which the adventurous stories of the slave Medora and the corsair Conrad are narrated.

The reference version, mother of all the others, is to be considered the one created in Paris in 1856, with the choreography by Joseph Mazilier and the music of Adolphe Adam, great success of the theatrical scenes of the Second Empire, in which the talent of the Italian dancer shone Carolina Rosati in the role of Medora.

Two years later it was reassembled, with additions and modifications, to St.Pietroburgo from Jules Perrot, dance teacher at the Imperial Theaters, with the support of Marius Petipa, then principal dancer. Petipa, with the passage of time and with the advancement of his career, curates a new version in 1863 - adds some dances to the notes of Cesare Pugni, composer of the Imperial Ballet - who in 1899 turns into a more complete one with a new pas de deux on music by Riccardo Drigo.

In the twentieth century, exactly in 1931, the ballet is revived by Agrippina Vaganova, but without success. In 1955 Pyotr Gusev proposes a more streamlined version and in the 1973 Konstantin Sergeyev creates a new staging for the Kirov Ballet. In 1987 a new version is born Gusev-Slonimsky for the Mariinsky Theater Ballet. In 1998 arrives in the United States and in 2007 in Europe.