Stuggart Ballet.

In 1962, when John Cranko revamped his 1958 La Scala staging of Romeo and Juliet for his Stuttgart Ballet, only a dozen other productions of the Prokofiev score had preceded it. Since then nearly six times as many have followed.

For its first local appearances since 1979, at the New York State Theater July 7 through 11 as part of Lincoln Center Festival '98, Stuttgart director Reid Anderson chose Cranko's Romeo as well as the choreographer's Onegin (1965). The three-act Romeo unfolds amid reworkings of Jurgen Rose's original designs. This time the scenery is grayer, if more elaborately rendered, and the costumes are fussier. Given the string of stagings that followed Cranko's efforts, his version now tends to look more influential than impressive.

His theatrical delineation of Shakespeare's "tale of woe" moves with easy momentum and deft dramatic effects. Neither as melodramatically pungent as the landmark Leonid Lavrovsky version (1940) nor as academically fortified as Frederick Ashton's lyrical staging (1955), Cranko's ballet nevertheless pointed the way for many future versions, notably Kenneth MacMillan's now-popular 1965 staging. While Cranko's characters are clear, not all of them are fully developed. Neither Paris nor Lord Capulet is finely drawn, and Benvolio is at once indistinguishable from Mercutio and nonexistent.

There isn't much straightforward classical dancing. Sweeping character numbers and acrobatic duets abound; individual dancing by individualized ballet dancers does not. The production's frequent pas de deux are not especially nuanced. Gymnastic, tricky lifts occur regularly, whether for a would-be decorous ballroom duet between Paris and Juliet or for a first meeting followed by a nighttime reverie for Juliet and her Romeo. This lack of gradation gives little narrative or dramatic distinction to the intimacy, tenderness, or formality implied in these very physical moments.

There is no telling what Cranko himself might have done to elaborate his staging had he lived longer. With his untimely death in 1973, his ballets became set, and the current stagings by scrupulous choreologist Georgette Tsinguirides are whistleclean in detail. This "letter of the legacy" policy is admirable but not always practical. The superb and incomparable Vladimir Malakhov is a much more marvelous dancer and actor than was Richard Cragun, who put his stamp on Romeo, but Cragun's strength in tours en l'air (triples, no less) haunt the choreography's text, although such facility is not comfortably within Malakhov's range.

Both men dancing Benvolio (Alexander Zaitsev and Filip Barankievicz) proved more intriguing dancers and actors than either of the hyperactive fellows portraying Mercutio (Krzysztof Novogrodzki and Thomas Lempertz).

The women fare somewhat worse for sheer ballet dancing. Only the fleet and delicate Julia Kraimer made much of Juliet. (Yseult Lendvai looked and danced like a matron, while Sue Jin Kang seemed too big for the role's physical demands.) Marcia Hayd6e, the production's original Juliet, made a star turn out of the mime and mad scene dramatics of Lady Capulet.

Onegin, based on Pushkin's poem Eugene Onegin and set to a specially arranged Tchaikovsky score (by Kurt-Heinz Stolze), is the more mature theatrical production. Its inspired designs, also by Rose, look better than ever. Although Cranko's treatment of the complex romantic subject is somewhat simplistic, as is his understanding of Russian society (telling more of received wisdom than illuminating insight), the melodramatic action pours forth confidently and gives the right dancers opportunities for verismo performances.

Once more the exquisite Malakhov was faced with a role (Lensky, Onegin's friend) made for a very different dancer. Where Egon Madsen had sweep and impetuousness, Malakhov showed perfection of line and refinement of manner. (In the same role, Robert Tewsley proved brash as an actor and unsure as a dancer; his Romeo had similar flaws.) Kang performed vividly as the two-note Tatiana, while the staid Lendvai was better served both as dancer and actress in this role than she was by Juliet.

In the very tricky title role, in which a seemingly wooden aristocrat has to reveal fiery blood where sluggish sap might be, Ivan Cavallari offered the most credible portrayal. He had to dance some of Cranko's most flamboyantly acrobatic duets with a substitute Tatiana (Kang, in for an injured Sonia Santiago), and did so remarkably well. Roland Vogel was wooden beyond measure as an actor but superb as partner to Kang; Tamas Detrich was a better, but not really interesting Onegin, and a decent partner to Lendvai.

Robert Greskovic, a New York City critic for Dance Magazine, is the author of Ballet 101.