The Pharaoh's Daughter
Petipa began work by collaborating with the composer Pugni, who wrote his melodious and apt score with Petipa while in rehearsals. "The Pharaoh's Daughter" premiered on to an unrivaled success. The work exceeded even the opulent tastes of the Tsarist audience, as so lavish and exotic a ballet had not been seen on the Imperial stage for some time. The work went on to become the most popular ballet in the entire repertory of the Imperial Theatres—by 1903 it had been performed 203 times. The great success of "The Pharaoh's Daughter" earned for Petipa the position of second "Maître de ballet" to the Imperial Theatres. Saint-Léon answered the success of Petipa's "The Pharaoh's Daughter" with the fantastical ballet "Le Petit Cheval bossu, Ou La Tsar-Demoiselle" ("The Little Humpbacked Horse, or The Tsar Maiden"), a ballet adaptation of Pyotr Yershov's famous Russian poem. The work proved to be a success equal to that of "The Pharaoh's Daughter", with its series of fantastical tableaux set under-water and on an enchanted isle, as well as the ballet's final "Grand divertissement" celebrating the many peoples of the Russian Empire.