An enjoyable frolic through the countryside

The story -- set to a score by Ferdinand Hérold that has been adapted and arranged by John Lanchbery -- is a simple one: The widow Simone, owner of a prosperous farm, wishes her daughter, Lise, to marry the doltish Alain, the son of a wealthy and pompous vineyard owner named Thomas. But Lise has already found her match, in Colas, a handsome young farmer. The two dodge and connive, and eventually win out, even garnering the blessings of their parents.

This is the peasantry seen through rose-colored glasses -- even when bolts of yellow lightning slash the sky. Lorna Feijóo and Nelson Madrigal as the young lovers have a special magic -- partly, perhaps, because they're a couple in real life, but also because both are such musical dancers. Feijóo is both perky and deliberate. Her bourrées are hummingbird quick, her suspensions long and languid. She's a master at Ashton's fiendishly tough steps: tiny beats and reverberating foot taps, legs that shudder and fly like translucent wings. Madrigal is lithe as a tiger, anticipating the beat rather than reacting to it, whether he's executing taffy-like tours jeté or spins that kerplunk into drops -- though he does seem a bit worn out by the end of the first act. They are eloquent together: When he lifts her while leaning through a door's transom, she's as delicate as a leaf in the wind.

Pink ribbons flutter through the action like a leitmotif, pulling the choreography both together and onward. Now they function as reins for Feijóo with Madrigal as her steed, now they twist into an elaborate cat's cradle over the pair's torsos. At one stunning moment, Feijóo, in attitude, turns on point at the center of a maypole crafted out of the ribbons by her friends.

Joel Prouty as Alain is rubbery and taut at once -- Harpo Marx meets Charlie Chaplin. His is a classicism flavored by vaudeville, as he rides his beloved red umbrella like a hobby horse or skitters out of the room off-kilter. Viktor Plotnikov as the widow Simone (she is played by he, as is traditional in English pantomime) manages to be over-the-top but never slapstick, even when he slams a drawer shut with his tush. He's simultaneously elegant and clunky in the yellow-clog dance, clacking his heels together, pushing up on point, even sliding into a heely that would do a 10-year-old proud.

The corps de ballet -- playing Lise's and Colas's friends -- are precise and full-bodied, serving not just as framing for the principals but executors of intricate, textured square dances, line dances, and chain dances. ''La Fille Mal Gardée" is unified to the core: A picaresque romp through the English countryside, a happy frolic with farmers in the dell.