Antony Tudor’s 1936 “Lilac Garden” is an essential ballet of the 20th-century canon, and the New York Theatre Ballet performed it at Florence Gould Hall over the weekend. It was once a staple of American Ballet Theatre’s repertory, but ABT hasn’t performed it since the beginning of this decade.

“Lilac Garden” describes the final meeting between two young lovers at a party to celebrate the woman’s impending marriage. She is going into a loveless union, probably of economic necessity, while her husband-to-be is saying goodbye to his mistress. Tudor was a latecomer to ballet and, while not an autodidact, he characteristically composed in a way that was heretical to what dancers learn in the conventional syllabus. “Lilac Garden” requires things that young American dancers find very difficult to do. The dancers are meant to be idealized figures of the ballet stage even as they clearly portray individualized human interactions. Even when standing still, their bodies must transmit emotion.

The NYTB dancers were constrained by the small size of the stage, even though “Lilac Garden” was created for the Mercury Theatre in London, which had a stage even smaller. The characters in the ballet must bear a crushing burden of societal confinement, yet Tudor necessitates a full-throttle expression even when in the service of a portrait of straitjacketed emotions. NYTB certainly needs more stage time with the work, but NYTB’s performance demonstrated the way respect for the ballet is almost half the battle.

The program also included Tudor’s perceptive “Little Improvisations,” in which two young people’s emotional give-and-take spins out by way of quotations from balletic repertory, and his cynical, dank, and poignant “Judgment of Paris,” wherein three beldams in a clip joint wearily go through their routines for the ostensible delight of a patsy patron.

Opening the program was “Suite from Mazurkas,” which consisted of most of José Limón’s 1958 “Mazurkas,” which was absolutely fresh and first-rate. Its bending, rippling, and spinning seemed to suit the dancers. They were vibrant and joyous and assured.