Everyone knows the story by now, thanks to Andrew Lloyd Webber: the disfigured ghost at the Paris Opera who becomes obsessed with a rising star of the company and sets out on a doomed course of wooing her.

The Indiana Ballet Company takes these basic elements and weaves them into an easy-to-follow struggle for love -- with intense rivalry over ballerina Christine between the Phantom's menacing passion and the more idyllic, if somewhat bland, devotion of Raoul, the ballet master.

A danceable "Phantom" is an easy transition, as the 1911 novel by Gaston Leroux opens with consternation among the corps de ballet at the appearance of the long-rumored ghost. And ballet at the Paris Opera historically occupied a position as indispensable as singing itself.

As presented Friday in the first of two performances at the Madame Walker Theatre, artistic director Alyona Yakovleva's choreography for the new ballet had a wealth of dramatic points to make. It never failed to engage the imagination, and the balance among characteristic solos, duos and trios and use of the corps de ballet flowed attractively.

As the Phantom, Sergey Sergiev projected a brooding persona -- the traditional evening clothes reduced to a black suit, with the coat open to show his bare chest. The white half-mask, of course, was always in place, except at dramatic turning-points.

While his energy uncoiled into gestures of erotic power that reached up and seemed to envelop the stage, the Phantom's stance and pacing had an appropriately earthbound quality, as if he were accustomed to coming into the world of ordinary people from below.

Tuesday Mayhew, as Christine, made her debut with the company in a manner that indicated her star qualities. Her moments of collapse and trancelike "possession" by the Phantom were wholly convincing, yet the character's lively spirit in more natural mental and physical states also enchanted.

Roman Nikiforov danced Raoul with enough snap and authority in his postures and partnering of Mayhew that the character never sagged into a stick figure, for which Yakovleva must also be thanked.

Costumes and lighting complemented the action, and the variety of recorded music steadily supported Yakovleva's vision. The bright opening of the second act in a Spanish character dance (to music of Manuel de Falla) was a nice touch, relieving the general gloom of the story and reminding us of its essentially show-biz setting.

The occasional use of four female dancers in half-masks effectively represented the Phantom's aura and hinted at his compelling, yet sadly untriumphant supernatural powers.