Alessandra Ferri left American Ballet Theatre on Saturday night the same way she joined in 1985: dancing Juliet in Kenneth MacMillan’s “Romeo and Juliet.” For her first performance, she was 22, and already acclaimed for the role of Juliet in this same production at London’s Royal Ballet, where she had emerged as a favorite of the choreographer. This evening, she was a favorite of the audience.

An occasion like Saturday night’s farewell is more in the nature of a lifetime achievement tribute. The actual quality of the goodbye performance is secondary or perhaps even irrelevant. But it is, nevertheless, my critical and reportorial obligation to say that this did not rank with the most moving or gripping performances I’ve seen Ms. Ferri give. She had been scheduled for two performances of “Manon” two weeks ago, to which she added a third performance deputizing for an injured colleague. This week, she had only one shot at Juliet, and that undoubtedly added to the pressure of a farewell performance.

In the earlier parts of the ballet, Ms. Ferri seemed slightly self-conscious, overdoing Juliet’s girlishness. This, however, is almost impossible for ballerinas to avoid, since they must establish a legible departure point from which to progress into adult resolve and independence. As the performance continued, Ms. Ferri danced beautifully but was somewhat distant from the role. She seemed to lecture the audience on how she saw the role of Juliet and how she had pored over its details. This wasn’t inappropriate given her seniority, her experience, and the fact thatthis was her last Juliet. But as a result I studied her somewhat dispassionately, admiring her musical alertness, her superb physical preservation, her flexible back, and the unimpaired quality of her arabesque, winged and impetuous.

As in “Manon,” Roberto Bolle was Ms. Ferri’s partner in “Romeo,” and once again I found their partnership odd. There is a lot to admire about Mr. Bolle’s dancing. His technique is impressive by any standard, and rather amazing given his height and build. His saut de basques and pirouettes are centered and vertically aligned to a degree that you rarely see in men’s technique. And there is mobility as well as breadth to his torso and his arabesque. But emotionally and interpretively he seems blank, though he goes through all the motions of the role conscientiously. There is an emotional passivity about him that, if developed, could inform his characterizations of both callow Romeo and Des Grieux in “Manon,” but on Saturday night it proved inhibitive. At times, Ms. Ferri seemed to be waiting for an emotional response from him, and he seemed like silly putty waiting for her imprint. While he gave her unwavering support in the Balcony adagio, there was in the first two acts no more than fraternal affection between them.

But the emotional barometer shifted in Act III. Ms. Ferri’s intensity here was searing. In the bedroom duet, her collapses to the ground in his arms seemed like an irrecoverable plunge into oblivion. Throughout this act, Mr. Bolle’s emoting was, if anything, excessive, something different from Ms. Ferri’s sometimes raw passion, which always seems to be derived from a core of emotional conviction.

This was the final of eight consecutive performances of “Romeo and Juliet” ABT offered last week, and the strain was beginning to tell. The corps de ballet did everything it could to make Ms. Ferri’s last ABT performance as vital as possible, but there was some staleness to the supporting roles; a notable exception was Isaac Stappas’s Tybalt.

None of this detracted, however, from the real point of the evening, which was to celebrate Ms. Ferri’s contributions to ABT over the past two decades. On this score, it succeeded, allowing her to bow out of the company in a state of fitness that held up to her past achievements and made her retirement seem entirely voluntary.