The Swan Lake theme really is something. Was another such tune ever crafted that could be simultaneously applied to scenarios of tragic romance, psychological horror, and personal apotheosis? The alluring perversion of Tchaikovsky’s composition is at the heart of a brand new adaptation of a film that is itself an unconventional adaptation of the ballet. Darren Aronofsky’s thriller Black Swan, following a troubled ballerina who must dance both the pure Swan Queen Odette and her evil twin Odile, layered fresh interpretations of Swan Lake’s themes atop the ballet’s plot, including threatening doppelgangers and not being enough for the object of one’s adoration.
Now, the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) in Massachusetts has done something that was frankly baffling to us locals when we first heard of it: created a Black Swan musical, adding another medium to the proverbial artistic onion. A.R.T. is the birthplace of several fascinating musical adaptations, including 2024’s Gatsby: An American Myth (with choreography by Sonya Tayeh and songs by Florence Welch). The production premiered in the shadow of Broadway’s The Great Gatsby adaptation, and was set to receive a London reading as of 2025. Tayeh, the Tony-winning choreographer of Broadway’s Moulin Rouge! The Musical, is the ideal director for this production of Black Swan: an explosive reimagining, a monster that spars with influences of the original ballet, the acclaimed film, and the tradition of Broadway. The musical’s book is by Guggenheim Fellow Jen Silverman, with a soundtrack by Obie winner Dave Malloy.
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The film’s framework and fixation on doubles and mirrors are all there, but now excerpts and distortions of the original Swan Lake score weave in and out of electric instrumentals and intense lyrics. The early musical numbers are anchored in classical ballet moves, before we watch the choreography descend into wild contemporary styles as the story progresses. “In a traditional musical, you have writers working by themselves […] a choreographer builds dance to support the songs. Here, a lot of it has been the opposite,” music supervisor Or Matias said to Harvard Magazine. “Sonya would come up with an idea and say, ‘This is the kind of storytelling I’m looking to accomplish over this three-minute movement segment,’ and we would sit in a room with the dancers and build it together. Dave would sit there with his laptop and headphones while Sonya was doing movement and counts, and I would be bouncing between them.”
Melanie Moore steps into the role of Nina, who is warmer than she is as portrayed in Natalie Portman’s Oscar-winning turn: stage Nina is an endearingly neurotic professional ballerina who fantasises about being someone more uninhibited, even before she lands the dual lead role in Swan Lake. In both versions, Nina’s mind splinters as she is haunted by her dark alter ego, the unholy byproduct of her obsessive quest for perfection and her rivalry with fellow dancer Lily (Mila Kunis in the film, Jada Simone Clark on stage).
With opening night approaching, Nina’s mental strain is exacerbated by her mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey; renamed Barbara and played by Kate Jennings Grant on stage, or Mehry Eslaminia the night I saw it), a dancer who never made it and thus self-actualises through her daughter’s career, while director Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel) harasses Nina as he attempts to transform her into the more sensual Black Swan, molding her in the image of ousted prima ballerina Beth (Winona Ryder/Tory Trowbridge). On stage, however, the director is a woman: Margaux LeRoy (Amber Iman, performing a sassy, perceptive authority with subtle nuances of struggle), whose career hangs on her iconoclastic production of Swan Lake.
