Marie Antoinette: Vampire Queen of Versailles

Commissioned by The Butler New Choreography Endowment

THE STORY

The ballet opens with the marriage of Marie Antoinette. Married to King Louis XVI, she becomes trapped inside the gilded cage of Versailles, where she is scrutinized, mistrusted, and denied agency over nearly every aspect of her life. She is publicly examined, judged, and longing for affection in a loveless marriage.

During an evening at the theater, she glimpses scenes of passion and devotion which awaken her forbidden desire. In the Hall of Mirrors, she encounters Axel von Fersen, a military man who offers earthly romance — as well as a mysterious vampire who offers something far more intoxicating: power, immortality, and vengeance.

Faced with an impossible choice between human love and supernatural seduction, Marie Antoinette chooses to be “turned.” As her transformation unfolds, innocence fractures, betrayal sharpens, and the line between victim and villain blurs.

Seductive. Decadent. Deliciously dangerous. Marie Antoinette: Vampire Queen of Versailles reframes one of history’s most infamous women as the antiheroine of her own macabre fairytale.