The early history of the Bolshoi Ballet is very sketchy. The company staged many famous ballets. It struggled to compete with the Imperial Russian Ballet of St Petersburg. It was not until Alexander Gorsky became Ballet Master in 1900 that the company began to develop its own unique identity. The company was acclaimed for productions of new or restaged ballets including, "Don Quixote" (1900), "Coppélia" (1901), "Swan Lake" (1901), "La fille mal gardée" (1903), "Giselle" (1911), "Le Corsaire" (1912) and "La Bayadère" (1917).