Le Corsaire - Solo Farouk Ruzimatov (1988)

Ali (Slave) Entrée and Variation from Le Corsaire Act 2. For me Ruzimatov is the perfect Ali as I think it’s the role that most suited his uniqueness of line. The jetés... you can draw a perfect arch. He shows no sign of fatigue at any point and everything sparkling clean. Farouk Ruzimatov (born January 26, 1963 in Uzbekistan) was formerly the Principal Dancer and Assistant Artistic Director of The Kirov Ballet at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg. Le Corsaire - Solo Farouk Ruzimatov (1991): ------------------------------------- Le Corsaire is a ballet in three acts, loosely based on Lord Byron’s poem The Corsair with its eunuchs, Turks, dervishes, odalisques and general atmosphere of bead-curtains and Ali Baba... a multi-composer pastiche, first presented by the ballet of the Théâtre Impérial de l´Opéra in Paris on 23 January 1856. The ballet has a celebrated solo which is often extracted from the full-length work and performed independently: the so-called Ali (Slave) Variation, which is among classical ballet’s most famous and performed excerpts. On 24 January 1915, Le Corsaire was presented in a new production at the Mariinsky Theatre. As was the custom of the time, music from various sources was selected in order to serve as accompaniment: this variation in triple time (“Ali“) was taken from the composer Yuli Gerber’s score for Petipa’s 1870 ballet Trilby. The Balletmaster Pyotr Gusev staged a new version of Le Corsaire for the Maly Theatre of Leningrad in 1955. A new character was also included - known as the slave Ali - a role which evolved out of the Slave who took part in the Le Corsaire Pas de Deux in the early Soviet productions of Le Corsaire at the Mariinsky Theatre. ------------------------------------- Lord Byron (1788-1824) was an English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement. Byron was celebrated in life for aristocratic excesses including huge debts, numerous love affairs with both sexes, and self-imposed exile. He was famously described by Lady Caroline Lamb as “mad, bad and dangerous to know“. He traveled to fight against the Ottoman Empire in the Greek War of Independence, for which Greeks revere him as a national hero. He died merely 36 years old from a fever contracted in Greece. The Corsair is a semi-autobiographical tale in verse by Lord Byron, which was extremely popular and influential in its day, selling ten thousand copies on its first day of sale (in 1814). Its poetry, divided in cantos (as Dante’s Divine Comedy), narrates the story of the corsair Conrad (Verdi’s Corrado), how he was in his youth rejected by society and his later fight against humanity (excepting women). The opera Il Corsaro by Giuseppe Verdi, the overture Le Corsaire by Hector Berlioz and the ballet Le Corsaire by Adolphe Adam were based on this work. Wikipedia link to more info on Lord Byron: