Holmes – Solymosi / Adam: Le Corsaire

This ballet's plot is inspired by The Corsair, a famous verse written in 1814 by Lord Byron, who towered over an entire generation of English Romantic poets. The thrilling story, full of adventure, also leaves plenty of room for love, betrayal, life-threatening danger, a shipwreck, and ultimately, escape. Byron's work was so successful that ballet masters were staging it as early as the 1820s, soon after it appeared. The 1856 Paris production caused a sensation with the stagecraft used in it to depict the shipwreck. The strange love between the pirate captain and the slave girl was put to music by Adolphe Adam. The choreography – following in the footsteps of legendary Marius Petipa and Konstantin Sergeyev – was revised and tailor-made for the dancers of the Hungarian National Ballet by Anna-Marie Holmes and Tamás Solymosi.