What do you expect from a danseur noble? Elegant posture, good looks, graceful manners, stunning technique or all of the above? Only a few dancers can fulfill all these requirements, but the two guest stars of Tokyo Ballet's recent production of "Sleeping Beauty," Mathieu Ganio and Manuel Legris, were the perfect picture of ballet princes.
Ganio and Legris, two of the Paris Opera Ballet's top dancers, turned the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan in Ueno into a fairyland for four nights. Ganio, playing the Prince Desire on Aug. 17 and 19 with Mizuka Ueno as the Princess Aurora, and Legris, who took on the part Aug. 16 and 18 with Reiko Koide, are both noble dancers, but they portrayed the role quite differently, making the most of their individual strengths.
In Tchaikovsky's classic ballet, Princess Aurora is spellbound by the evil Fairy Carabosse and put to sleep on her 16th birthday. A hundred years later, the good Fairy Lilac shows her vision to Prince Desire. The Prince, falling in love with her at first sight, defeats Carabosse and breaks the evil spell with a kiss on the Princess' lips.
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