Monaco’s Monte Carlo Ballet Brings ‘Swan Lake’ to Korea: What to Expect from This 2026 Performance

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The Ballets de Monte‑Carlo will bring its Swan Lake (Le Lac des Cygnes, Swan Lake) to Korea, performing May 16–17, 2026, at the Seoul Arts Center Opera House and on May 20 at the Daejeon Arts Center.

Following tours for Cinderella in 2005 and 2019 and Romeo and Juliet in 2023, this marks the company’s fourth visit to Korea — and the first time the company will stage Swan Lake here.

The Ballets de Monte‑Carlo continues the lineage of Les Ballets Russes, the company Sergei Diaghilev founded in 1909, which included dancers such as Waclaw Nizynski and Alexandra Danilova, composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Leonid Massine.

Monaco was long a hub for Les Ballets Russes and the development of modern ballet. After Diaghilev’s death in 1929 the company splintered and was repeatedly dissolved; in 1985 Princess Caroline reestablished the Ballets de Monte‑Carlo as a royal company.

Renowned for neo‑classical works that fuse classical ballet with contemporary dance, the company’s Swan Lake was choreographed by Jean‑Christophe Maillot, who became artistic director in 1933.

Premiered in 2011, this Swan Lake is one of Maillot’s signature pieces, using dance to expose a story’s core and the characters’ psychology through an intuitive, finely tuned mise‑en‑scène.

As with their Cinderella — which conveys raw emotion barefoot in gilded tones, moving between imagination and reality — and their Romeo and Juliet — which honors Shakespeare’s arc and Prokofiev’s score while offering distinct characterizations and cinematic staging of deaths such as Mercutio, Romeo and Tybalt — this Swan Lake aims to be a living, contemporary interpretation rather than a museum‑like reproduction of tradition.

The Ballets de Monte‑Carlo’s Swan Lake reframes the ballet as a psychological drama: the work emphasizes the lake — the event at the heart of the story — and probes childhood trauma, familial conflict and the stark moral clashes within the human psyche, rather than focusing on conventional romance.

Ahn Jae‑yong, the company’s only Korean principal, who appeared as the father in the 2019 Cinderella and as Tybalt in the 2023 Romeo and Juliet, will join this tour as well.

Pointing to the delicacy of the hands as a key detail to watch, Ahn told reporters ahead of the May 12 performance at Hwaseong Arts Center that Maillot’s Swan Lake “prioritizes realistic emotional expression over exaggerated acting.”

He added, “This is not about masculine force; it’s about a fragile, wounded prince wrestling with childhood trauma and finding his own way through it. Technique matters, but as a performer I focus on conveying a visceral narrative and the character’s inner collapse on stage.”

Reporter Heo Mi‑seon hurlkie@viva2080.com