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Performed by Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra, Lac is a ballet choreographed by Jean-Christophe Maillot in a staging at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. Based on the fairytale ballet Swan Lake, by Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky, which premiered on 4 March 1877 in Moscow, Lac has additional music by Bertrand Maillot and is a reimagined version of the story. Maillot puts the story at the core of his version of the ballet with new characters and dramatic tensions shaping the narrative. Lac was first performed on 27 December 2011 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco.

Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake is one of the most famous ballets to have ever been written. In particular, Act II is noted as containing some of the most memorable ballet music in the repertoire. However, as critics have noted, the narrative of the ballet is almost put on hold in Tchaikovsky's masterpiece at this point. Although this offers the chance for some abstract dance, the story isn't the composer's priority during this section which, instead, focuses on the sheer beauty of music and dance. This was one of the aspects of Swan Lake that Maillot wanted to alter in his reworking of it. In Lac, the choreography is more focused on the plot with some new music here and there that helps the story to come to life.

As a narrative ballet, Lac was developed by Maillot in conjunction with the esteemed French author, Jean Rouaud. One of the major differences between Lac and Swan Lake is that the warlock, Baron von Rothbart, is rewritten as a woman in black. It is this new character who abducts Odette, Prince Siegfried's childhood sweetheart. When she returns, Siegfried is forced to confront the new attraction he has for another despite the yearnings he has lived with for so long over Odette. As such, Lac is more of a psychological drama with less emphasis on the magical and metamorphic aspects of the original and a greater focus on nightmarish concepts associated with, perhaps, the sort of repressed experiences modern audiences can relate to.

Maillot's choreography draws out these narrative elements with a creative blend of neo-classical and modern dance forms. Musically, the score features many of the famous melodies that Tchaikovsky wrote but Lac uses them in new, often compelling ways, tending to make use of passages in surprising ways and somewhat unexpected sequences. Audience-goers at Florence's Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino will have the chance to judge for themselves just how much new life Maillot has breathed into Swan Lake in Lac, a truly remarkable ballet production.