Boy this conversation has gotten a bit complicated. Since I brought up the matter I should probably explain my objection more clearly. Going from a debate about characterization's in the Bolshoi's production to dangling the threat of a ban on 19th century ballet is a bit of a bait and switch, drawing the argument away from the substance of the debate to a easily disparaged position. I'm not going to bite.
The problem I have is not with politically incorrect 19th century ballet scenarios. It's about what the designers of a contemporary production expect from their audience. If you stage the Merchant of Venice today you're going to have to deal with the fact that some of the laughs in the play are not going to play for a contemporary audience. Shakespeare is very funny, but not when he's making fun of jews. So staging the play is a challenge, but of course it's made worthwhile because Shakespeare didn't just make Shylock an anti-semitic caricature he also gave him some of the most eloquent lines in the English language.
So what's my point? Well, Corsaire has a plot that's hard to swallow, so what? So do a lot of ballets, operas, etc. The problem as I see it is that what the Bolshoi's production plays for laughs are simply not funny. Hooked nose, stingy jew getting his comeuppence? Not funny. Muslim character getting kicked in the ass while praying towards Mecca? Not funny. These are mime and makeup jokes, as far as I can tell, invented by this production because the designers thought they would get a response from the audience. Bad taste but also a miscalculation I would think. Show me where the evidence is that these specific mime sequences have historical precedent? And even if they do, they are no longer functional. Those mime sequences are there to be funny. They're not. So why do them like that?
I can't speak to the black maid that's said to be in the Moscow production but being glad it's not included in the US tour is a strange blessing to have to count. From where I was sitting the character that got laughs, the mime that worked for the audience was Zulmea. But Lankedem and the pasha have opportunities to be very funny but not in this production.
It may be true that historically Lankedem was created as a jewish character. If a production wants to honor the historicity of that, the designers, makeup artists, and actors still have a lot of decisions in front of them--decisions that are not easily answered by historical precedent because they are far more specific than any kind of historical evidence available. In short the actor must create a new character. This happens even when an actor has written dialogue as their starting point. Any actor who plays Shylock will speak the same lines but no two performances are going to communicate the same way. The actor will make all sorts of choices that transmit different ideas to the audience, hopefully compelling ones. Imagination is required to find a solution through the fundamental dilemma. This is as true with Lankedem as with other tricky parts made difficult for very different reasons, Albrecht for instance.
The Bolshoi's production is a work of imaginations so limited that they could think of nowhere to go with the characters, no other dramatic/comedic opportunities, than to focus intently on communicating the bluntest of ethnic stereotypes. I just can't find my way to seeing historical accuracy as an excuse for what I saw last Sunday. But Lankedem didn't single handedly ruin the whole ballet for me. I thought the whole thing was pretty awful.