Ballet Manila's Le Corsaire

Lisa Macuja

I've always preferred to watch ballet performances that are accompanied by an orchestra. Having live music gives the production a whole new layer and takes the whole experience several notches higher. And I view it as a natural progression of my usual watching of orchestral performances. So it was really a treat for me to see Ballet Manila’s Le Corsaire, accompanied by the Manila Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alexander Vikulov. And add to this the fact that this performance was also prima ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde’s final performance as Medora.

I found it very amusing and interesting to learn that Lisa isn’t actually too fond of Medora as a character. She thinks of her as a ditzy and gullible princess who doesn't have the qualities of what a heroine is supposed to be. Lisa may not like Medora from a ballerina’s point of view, but she feels that as the artistic director of Ballet Manila, Le Corsaire is a good ballet for a ballet company to have in their repertoire. Testosterone filled with four male leads, a pirate ship (including the pirates of course), damsels in distress, and exotic locales, Le Corsaire is indeed a very entertaining ballet filled with eye candy. But if you ask me, I find the story very absurd. When the abducted women were sold at the marketplace, it just screamed human trafficking and in today’s world, that is a deplorable crime. I just had to remind myself that people weren’t politically correct back then and that people are a lot wiser right now.

Despite this minor reservation regarding the plot, I did enjoy the ballet very much. Every appearance of Lisa on stage was a moment to be savored and the audience made it known by applauding her every entrance. The performance was far from perfect. At one point, the orchestra and Lisa’s pique turns weren’t in sync during the pas de trois. But that didn't matter at all and I doubt if any in the audience was able to pick that up since they were all relishing every moment that Lisa was performing on stage.

That afternoon’s performance featured dancers were Rudy de Dios as Conrad, Gerardo Francisco as Ali, Mylene Agaabao-Salgado as Gulnara, Alfren Salgado as Lankadem and Francis Cascaño as Birbanto. I particularly enjoyed the very famous pas de trois with Medora, Conrad and Ali which was brought to a higher level with the live music. I admit that I was a bit disappointed that BM’s version didn’t have the bedroom pas de deux between Medora and Conrad that I was really looking forward to. I then realized that famous ballets have undergone numerous revisions and restagings that the same ballet staged by different companies will be bound to have some differences from each other. What I found interesting in BM’s version was that the women up for sale in the marketplace wore ballet shoes instead of the pointe shoes as if to mark their lowly stature in the social order.

Rudy de Dios

After the performance, I found out that Lisa was actually in extreme pain before the performance and that an alternate in costume was on standby throughout the performance ready to take over if ever Lisa felt that she couldn’t continue. But Lisa was able to get through the performance as if there was nothing bothering her at all. It dawned on me that she might’ve been a few fouettés short of the expected 32 during the coda but I couldn’t imagine how courageous and gutsy of her to even execute just one considering that she was in such pain earlier on. It was indeed an honor for me to have had experienced what performers meant whenever they say that the show must go on.

The next production of Ballet Manila will be The Nutcracker this November 29-December 8, 2013 at the Aliw Theater. This production caps Lisa Macuja’s Swan Song series as she bids farewell to performing at full length ballets. All proceeds from The Nutcracker will be donated to the relief operations for the victims of Typhoon Yolanda.