Vladimir Nabokov wrote of Flaubert’s great novel Madame Bovary (1857), “stylistically it is prose doing what poetry is supposed to do,” which sounds a lot like the genre we call “story ballet.” Then again, the title character, Emma Bovary, is not very sympathetic; her desire for luxury and romance leads to the ruin of her family. The choreographer Helen Pickett is known for a progressive approach to narrative ballet, so how will she and the company director James Bonas shape their Emma Bovary? We’re told that they aren’t so much telling the story as they are animating Emma’s heart and soul. The National Ballet of Canada pairs Emma Bovary with James Kudelka’s Passion. —Laura Jacobs