The pas de deux from Le Corsaire, is an excerpt from the ballet created by Marius Petipa, in Saint Petersburg in 1899. Based on a poem by Byron, and was one of Rudolf ’s first successes. Once in the West, Nureyev danced this pyrotechnic pas de deux from Le Corsaire many times, always setting off wild enthusiasm. It was one of his bravura numbers. We find him, splendidly barbaric, erotic and feline with Margot Fonteyn as his partner, in a film from 1963. In general, the applause and the curtain calls lasted longer that the performance itself.
