It is always interesting to see how an artist develops, especially one as talented as Gillian Murphy, who is among American Ballet Theatre’s most technically spectacular dancers.

This was particularly evident during the company’s opening night gala when, with David Hallberg as Romeo, she danced Juliet’s farewell scene from Antony Tudor’s Romeo and Juliet to Delius’s Prelude to Irmelin, part of the one-act ballet Tudor choreographed in l943 (not being given in full this season, although they are marking Tudor’s centennial with several of his works). Murphy’s was a forlorn yet passionate Juliet, never letting her bravura technique eclipse the tender desperation of parting.