Crack ‘Swan’ takes flight

Unlike Natalie Portman’s tortured ballerina, Ashley Bouder has no trouble being the Black Swan. The technical brilliance and sensual attack of the role is inside her, waiting to strike.

“Swan Lake” is back at New York City Ballet, more due to the popularity of Portman’s “Black Swan” film than on the quality of the production, which has been done by the company since ’99. Story ballets — even those scored to Tchaikovsky — aren’t what the troupe does best, but good performances can save the day.

Starting out as the white swan Odette, Bouder is a tough bird. The role isn’t natural for her, but she’s intelligent, and knows how to make it work through her expressive back and musical timing. She’s fast and sharp in what is usually slow and sorrowful, and the orchestra also keeps the familiar score moving briskly.

If she’s constrained as Odette, she was born to dance the evil, scintillating black swan Odile. She’s fatal from her first entrance, giving her victim, Andrew Veyette’s Prince Siegfried, a hungry leer. As they dance, Bouder leisurely and seductively unfolds to reveal herself — she runs the show, and he’s just a snack. Veyette is better in contemporary roles; he manages the occasional Byronic pose and some emoting, but misses the nobility.

Anthony Huxley, who plays his sidekick, Benno, is poker-faced when acting, but when he dances, he’s eloquent. Though he’s short, his long lines seem to linger. Daniel Ulbricht is always an audience favorite when he dances the jester, adding mercurial curlicues to his showy jumps and spins.

Bouder is so unnervingly good as the black swan that it’s almost a disappointment when she reappears in white for the final scenes. Yet that’s where she becomes a true heroine, protecting Prince Siegfried from the evil sorcerer until the bittersweet ending. She earns her white feathers as well as her black ones after all.

She’ll dance the role again at Saturday’s matinee, alternating with the company’s other swans, Teresa Reichlen and Sterling Hyltin.