Human Trafficking at the Ballet

We saw the ballet, Le Corsaire, at the Metropolitan Opera 5/30; a lovely, lively production. The dancers are amazingly athletic. The choreography is not as spartan as the New York City Ballet's Balanchine style; there's a lot more acting, for example. But as always, the dancers are basically performing beautiful and graceful movements that are actually impossible for ordinary human beings, especially those of us twice thirty. It's a wonderful production.

The plot is vaguely based on Lord Byron's poem, The Corsair. ...The plot is much different, actually. Let's entertain ourselves by reviewing the plot from the radical feminist POV...

The ballet opens with a slave market. Two groups of women are bound and guarded, to be sold. To whom? The corsairs are on the left, the Pasha is on the right, the women are dancing. The slave trader, Lankendem, is dancing, too. The Pasha is wearing a fat suit and waddles (as much as a dancer can waddle). What are we celebrating in music and dance? Women cursed with beauty.

What is her choice? On the left, the criminals, the pirates, the corsairs. What mercies can a beautiful woman expect from them? What will life be like for her if she becomes the pirate's slave? Perhaps it will be very much like being his wife, which is not to say it will be better for her than the plain girl nearby who wasn't taken to be sold, who at least might be chosen by a man for who she is instead of what she looks like, who might be able to yet live among family and friends, to toil in the fields and haul water and chop limbs and tend fires and work at the hard labor of childbirth and nurturance. (Oh, wait! They're pirates! It would be against their principles to actually buy them outright! It will be so much more satisfying to steal them.)

On the right, the Pasha. With his wealth, he may choose whom he may among them. If he is not a cruel man, life among the harem might actually be tolerable. Financial security, the comforts of home, the companionship of women in the same boat. If there are enough of them, perhaps the sexual servitude won't be too frequent. And this Pasha looks old and fat and clumsy – perhaps he's only able to keep women for show, keep them selfishly away from other men simply to flex his power. Life could be worse, for example with the corsairs. On the other hand, he may be for all she knows a cruel tyrant, willing to make her suffer or even kill her if his whims find her displeasing for any cryptic reason. Life could be better, for example with the corsairs. Sigh.

Might she have been to have been born ugly, to have no man, to work as a nurse or maid or weaver among her own kin, unburdened by a despot? Life could be worse. Do not envy mindlessly those who seem more blessed. What a curse beauty is for a woman, who by this becomes an object to be admired; to be captured and bought and owned, a man's property but not his friend. A trophy.

One of the captives, the beautiful Medora, while being paraded by the slave vendor Lankendem, spots a handsome man and throws him a flower. The dramatic devices imply that this is love, a tragedy if not requited, that purchase by the Pasha means despair. But she doesn't know who he is. This impulsive toss of a flower tips the first domino of a long, winding row. We make so many small or impulsive choices in life that have unforeseeable consequences, that much later simply multiply regret. A beautiful woman who throws a flower and a smile to a handsome stranger may end up living with a sociopath or a narcissist – a man would be a poor pirate captain if he's not both.

The pirate captain is Conrad. His slave Ali and friend Birbanto see the situation and maneuver to help him. We will see later in the ballet that Birbanto is borderline (characterized by unstable personal relationships, unstable self-image, and inappropriate behaviors). Not the best person for Medora to share her fate with.

Three women dance and are rejected by the Pasha. Another dances, Gulnare, and pleases him, and is purchased. Then Medora dances, and the Pasha is smitten as badly as Conrad. After all, she's got form and substance, and moves well. He gives Lankendem two bags of gold, and everyone dances happily. Wait! Nobody asked Medora how she felt about this! As she dances, she casts yearning glances at Conrad. No man with normal testosterone levels, especially one who feels powerful, can resist the invitation of the yearning glance. Yet while the opinions of women do matter, (hypothetically) men in general -- tyrants and pirates in particular -- cannot imagine that a woman might prefer someone else.

After this, the ballet zips gracefully along the human-trafficking path. Conrad has very logically decided that if a beautiful woman has thrown him a flower, then he should kill a few guards and steal her. He is following the logic of the yearning glance and the tradition of rapine which feels so proper and normal to him. The dancing suggests that Medora agrees he should. How can the audience empathize with the obese, awkward, greedy pasha. Instead, we empathize with the slender, graceful, handsome, randy corsair. We miss the thought that Medora has taken leave of her senses. The pirates kidnap her and the slave seller, Lankendem, closing Act I with a change of ownership for Medora and the reject clutch of slave women. We assume she's happy.

Act II pretty much shows men at our most macho. Back at the pirates' cave, a dance shows that Medora is infatuated with the pirate captain, Conrad, and he with her. Stockholm Syndrome, anyone? But it's a ballet: we simply continue to dance with precision, athleticism, and grace. It's really a wonderful show.

Did I mention why you haven't heard of the composer of this 19th-century ballet? It's because it was composed by committee – five composers plus re-orchestration. One of the finer committee efforts, actually, in the history of committees.

Back to human trafficking and the attitude of men toward women. Medora notices that Conrad is all google-eyed, and gets him to release all the captured slave women. This does not please the pirates, who were rather hoping for a little pussy on their own. They are not happy with their addled captain. But the girls have all run away, so they have to be satisfied with expressing their frustration by having a mutiny.

(We point out at this juncture that no one has asked whether it seems good to the girls to be doled out to the pirates, nor have we considered whether it's actually a favor to simply turn loose the poor girls, with neither a voc rehab program or a letter of safe passage.) What was Conrad thinking? (Wait, he's a man, with scrotal logic.)

Conrad's friend Birbanto, who seems to have a hard on for the pasha's “liberated” slaves (especially Gulnare, who has not yet been stolen), is very, very, disappointed in Conrad. Remember, Birbanto seems to be borderline as well as sociopathic. (The thought of “liberation” might have escaped the minds of these half-dozen young beautiful women who have been stolen from imprisonment in a harem into being roped together in a cave with lascivious, horny pirates.)

Conrad single-handedly defeats the mutiny. This seems to impress Medora, who is already pretty smitten.

Birbanto is so disappointed that he decides it would be best to kill Conrad. Remember, he's a sociopath, and the ballet is already past half way. If he doesn't stir his butt, the ballet's time slot will run down and he'll still be in his dressing room. He heads for Conrad, who's asleep, with a knife, but he's headed off by Ali, Conrad's faithful slave. (This is one of many reasons why it pays dividends to be good to your slave, the other being a willingness to help when help is actually needed.) Birbanto doses a flower with an powerful inhalation anesthetic, and forces the captive slaver Lankendem to give it to Medora to pass to Conrad. Despite poor handling of the flower, only Conrad is made comatose.

Lankendem grabs Medora, who's stolen for the third time (not that women mind being stolen, it seems), and heads back for the Pasha, where he demands a reward.

So now we are about through with the middle act. The slave women have been "freed" to run around helplessly in a strange land, the pirates have mutinied on account of acute prostatic congestion, the pirate's friend has betrayed him (oh, right. Sorry. These are pirates), and the pasha is not feeling happy about his personal situation.

Act III begins with the Pasha at home, receiving back the miserable Medora. His reaction to seeing Medora is to swoon, which helps us understand the lack of children around the palace. While he's post-ictal, the harem, 18 beautiful women, dance gracefully and with great precision and athleticism for a very long time. It's not so bad, apparently, to be a sex slave for a man who goes to sleep at the mere thought. Life could be worse, for example living with the pirate criminals, making meals of stolen stale food over a fire of dried camel dung on the dirt floor of a dank cave. (Or back home in the fields. Being captured and sold has to be compared with the alternatives, doesn't it?)

The kind, caring, altruistic pirates seem to have reconciled with their addled, aggressive captain, still bent on ownership of women, disguise themselves as hooded monks and visit the Pasha. They fool everyone except Medora, who for unimaginable reasons seems happy to see Conrad. There's no explaining hormones. Or impulse disorder, for that matter.

The pirates doff their gowns and attack the Pasha's soldiers and re-capture the harem, who may be getting a bit worn out by this game, but dance well anyway. Conrad recaptures Medora (who's willing) and Birbanto captures Gulnare (who is understandably reluctant – living with a borderline is not a nice experience). While Birbanto chases Gulnare (very gracefully, with great athleticism and careful rhythm – this is a ballet), Medora whispers his betrayal to Conrad, who (he's a sociopath, remember; simply shoots Birbanto dead). Conrad and his men go back to the ship with the women. It is unclear why Gulnare is willing to trek off into the pirate's world, though she is a friend with Medora. She dances quite cheerfully, another example of an impulse decision that turns out badly in hindsight.

A storm strikes and sinks the ship. All the pirates and trafficked women presumably drown, including the unfortunate Gulnare, for the ballet ends with no more dancing. As the curtain falls, Conrad and Medora lie high and damp on a seaside rock.<

We are waiting for the sequel.

Perhaps Conrad decides to give up pirating, having lost his ship and crew and his cargo, and he and Medora become sheep farmers. I wish I could say they live happily ever after, but the truth is that a narcissistic sociopath male and a woman with impulse control disorder now have to get along cooperatively. This does not turn out well in real life, possibly a reason the plot was not developed further. A good thing, as it's not a pretty sight. Though they stayed on this island, and herded sheep and raised vegetables and had children, they did not live happily ever after. No, when a woman partners up with a sociopathic, narcissistic man, life will never be good. And when a man partners up with an impulsive woman with poor judgment, life will always be tiresome.

The Pasha? His whose harem pretty much defunct, we presume he had an acute myocardial infarction and his little kingdom to a nephew.