As I sipped my vin rouge last week during an interval in "The Sleeping Beauty," K-Ballet's latest Tokyo production, a woman at the next table said to her companion: "I can't believe that evil fairy was a man! I just naturally thought it was a woman dancing that role."
Beyond disbelief, I am sure she would have been lost for words if she were to meet that "fairy," Stuart Cassidy, whose splendid dancing and cross-gender acting of the voluptuous, wicked Carabosse drew the first "Bravo!" of the whole show from somewhere high up in the massive five-story auditorium that is Tokyo Bunka Kaikan in Ueno.
That's because the 41-year-old English dancer is recognized across the ballet world as a sensitive but essentially male dancer, who is blessed with looks tailormade for the handsome prince in any dreamy landscape of classical ballet.