Dracula.

Nevada Dance Theatre's twenty-sixth season opener featured a bloodthirsty protagonist while satisfying the more traditional tastes of everyone from classical purists to contemporary dance buffs.

Jill Eathorne Bahr's choreography for Dracula is a visual counterpoint -- classical ballet for the principals set against the corps of the undead's writhing, Rite of Spring -- like background. Set to music by Arvo Part, Bernard Herrmann, and Leos Janacek, this one-act romantic ballet gives credibility to the characters in Bram Stoker's gothic tale.

The role of Dracula requires a strong, versatile dancer, and Richard Bradley was excellent as the sanguinary count. He presided over pyrotechnics and the nosferatu, occasionally retreating to his raked coffin upstage center. With the help of Flying by Foy, Bradley made several airborne entrances and exits. Later, he performed stunning acrobatics of the "don't try this at home" variety.

The object of Dracula's affections is Lucy, portrayed with unwavering focus by Clarice Geissel. She and Bradley mesmerized the audience with their darkly romantic pas de deux.

An unseen narrator -- a balletic anomaly -- relates the thoughts of the main characters, including Lucy's friend, Mina (Natalia Chapourskaya); Mina's fiance, Jonathan Harker (Pavel Romaniouk); and Lucy's suitor, Dr. Seward (John Surdick).

Sergei Popov was outstanding as Dr. Van Helsing, the vampire hunter. In this, primarily an acting role, Popov is a Nureyev look-alike with a strong stage presence. He held the audience's attention, from his first dramatic entrance -- lighting a cigarette on the darkened stage immediately after Harker has been overpowered by the vampire -- to the end, when Dracula is finally vanquished.

Earlier on the program, Chapourskaya and Romaniouk, former Kirov principals, gave bravura performances of the Don Quixote Pas de Deux. And Popov and Ella Gourkova were superb in Andre Prokovsky's Faust Divertimento. This radiant Ukrainian couple epitomized the Vaganova style at its best -- flawless technique as artistry's handmaiden.

Now directed by Bruce Steivel, NDT is the first-rate legacy to Las Vegas of founder Vassili Sulich. But except for its annual Nutcracker, NDT performs to taped music. Shame on this metropolis of megabucks for not providing an orchestra for all its performances.