The National Ballet of Canada’s summer double bill is a perfect contrast of modern athletic flair and romantic narrative tradition.

The much-lauded Emma Bovary is the evening’s main attraction with its elegant design and beautiful corps work. The title character was played on opening night by first soloist Jenna Savella, one of the ballet’s most reliable talents who has spent 22 years being slightly overlooked. In her retirement performance, Savella finally takes centre stage and brings great pathos to a proper prima character. Choreographer Helen Pickett’s interpretation of Madame Bovary is sexy and stylish but technically somewhat uninteresting and thematically on very similar territory to the much more successful Anna Karenina (I was partial to the 2018 John Neumeier version though the company has more recently added a second iteration by Christian Spuck to their repertoire).

Far more interesting in my opinion was the night’s opener, Kismet by Jera Wolfe. Creative, surprising, and visually arresting, Wolfe’s work plays brilliantly with expectation and optical illusion, turning the company’s capable corps into an enveloping, breathing being. The central duo of Ben Rudisin and Genevieve Penn Nabity deliver spectacular artistry and athleticism, proving why they are the company’s current shiniest stars. Modern work is quickly becoming the strength of the National’s crop of young performers and Kismet is just the latest example of the superb new work being created on the company.