Robert Gardner has clearly been bitten, and this is a good thing.

Having created a unique version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” last spring, the artistic director of the Minnesota Ballet has risen to an even greater creative challenge by starting off their new season with a world premiere “Dracula” that provides a happy Halloween 10 days early.

For his text, Gardner mainly follows Bram Stoker’s novel, although the endgame is played out at Whitby Abbey, as in the Bela Lugosi film version, and the idea of Mina being the count’s reincarnated love from the Francis Ford Coppola film is included as well. At the heart of the tale remains Dracula’s putting the bite on Lucy and the attempt to save Mina from the same fate.

This time, instead of working from the repertoire of a single composer, Gardner has stitched the score together in Frankenstein fashion from the works of Liszt, Shostakovich, Bartok, St. Saen, Rachmaninoff, Vivaldi and others (including an uncredited Bach). Dracula and Lucy’s dance at the end of the first act is especially matched well to the malevolent music.

Give Gardner a choice as choreographer between two dancers or three, he will go with three. Give him four dancers and he will rarely go with two pairs. Gardner also pays as much attention to same-gender pairings as he does to the traditional kind as Kritzberg and Ling prove.

The first half of the opening act is highlighted by Harker being attacked in turn by a trio of werewolves and then three of Dracula’s brides. The masked werewolves were played by new dancers Wilder Herrouet, Hussan Hopuy and Kevin James, so I do not know which werewolf had that first little solo, but it included one very impressive leg kick.

“The dancers are actors,” Gardner, who also plays Dr. Van Helsing, emphasizes in the program, and indeed one of the strengths of this company is that they convey as much with their faces as their feet. You would swear you could see the blood dripping from the fangs of vampiresses Suzie Baer, Heather Liskiewitz and Megan Wolfson.

The highlight of the evening was when Kritzberg’s Lucy rises from her grave and conducts a master class on how all movement is an element of dance and how important acting is to a complete performance in ballet as she suffers through her transformation into a blood-sucking fiend.

Wourms, once he gets rid of the lame gray wig, creates a Dracula full of power and grace that includes some nice work with the requisite cape. Ling makes for a delicate Mina, and there is a nice contrast between her dances with Wourms and von Rabenau as they fight for her soul.

The new member of the company to make the biggest first impression was Herrouet as Renfield, who spins with a manic flailing of arms and leaps while bending backward, earning a big burst of applause for his little gem of a choreographed character.

Ann Gumpper’s sumptuous scenic design is modeled on Edward Gorey’s “Dracula” toy theatre, which is in the Charles Addams school of eerie art. The costume design by Sandra Ehle leans toward black, white and blood red. There are also some impressive little special effects adding to the spooky fun.