Last week, the National Ballet of Canada celebrated the start of their landmark 75th season with the premiere of Romeo & Juliet. The company is bringing back choreographer John Cranko’s 1964 version of the ballet, a well known favourite among older fans of the company but unseen in the past generation as it was replaced by former Artistic Director Karen Kain’s celebrated commission from Alexei Ratmansky.

While I must admit that the Cranko didn’t quite live up to my sky-high Onegin-founded expectations, it’s always interesting to see multiple interpretations rather than revisiting the same thing every few years. And the company is smartly capitalizing on the story’s youthfulness as an opportunity to elevate rising stars and really focus on the ensemble’s future. Though it’s jarring to see ageless prima Heather Ogden suddenly playing a generation up as Lady Capulet, the ballet is a fertile proving ground for young stars Oliver Yonick  and Isabella Kinch who make strong debuts in leading roles out of the corps and as a second soloist, respectively.

Said casting proves important in this particular iteration as Cranko’s choreography highlights the characters’ teenage qualities with joyful camaraderie between the Montague boys and childish swooning in the crucial balcony scene highlighting the story’s rashness over its romance. Fantastic fight choreography by Karen Wooten almost veers into stunt territory and makes great use of the full stage with multi-level jumps and projectile prop work.

The vibrancy hits a bit of a wall as it battles against Prokofiev’s ultra-serious score that favours high romance and intense drama, the shift in tone that comes with the act three deaths reading as melodrama rather than earned emotion. The nightingale and the lark scene before Romeo leaves for banishment is unexpectedly the night’s loveliest pas de deux though the massive cuts to the story to allow for fleshed out group scenes make the back half of the ballet feel generally too rushed.

Though I’m unconvinced that this version is as flawless as its pristine reputation (I’d love to see the MacMillan at some point), NBoC’s return to Cranko leaves little to nitpick as the young artists rise completely to the occasion.