Even before the chandeliers rose at the Metropolitan Opera House, spirits were running high at the spring gala of the American Ballet Theatre. In this program, the company, embarking on its 65th anniversary season, looked ahead to the coming nine weeks, fluctuating between large-scale panoramas and locket-sized miniatures – even a “Piece d’Occasion” by tap dancer Savion Glover.

In “Polovtsian Dances,” the landscape is the ranging Eurasian highlands, but the province is Fokine at his most extravagantly ethnic. First staged for Parisian audiences by Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, the work takes as its music a divertimento from Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor.” Captured by a nomadic tribe called the Polovtsy, the Prince is treated to that timeless excuse for entertainment: the court order, or in this case the command of the Mongol chieftain Khan Konchak. The opera, unfinished at Borodin’s death, is given a boost by Rimsky-Korsakov’s treatment, adding booming orchestration to the harmonic woodwinds. The score pads the actual dancing first with an extended overture, then a solemn aria sung darkly by mezzo-soprano Jane Bunnell.

Once the curtain rises, she is the only moving figure, walking amid the shadows of warriors as they lounge by the campfire. They wear the elaborate Tartar dress of Elizabeth Dalton’s costumes. The background painting, depicting primitive huts overlooking a golden vista, emerges with the dawn.

The structure of the choreography in Frederic Franklin’s staging depends upon masculine and feminine contrasts in the score. The furor of horns sets Polovsian princess Stella Abrera running down the middle of the stage, her torso joggling to the tribal drums. Other girls follow in stride, with identical braids under their headdresses. Once they exit and the men are left alone, the real entertainment begins with the entrance of dazzling maidens in full odalisque gear. In translucent citrons, blues, and pinks, they move with a slowness that is almost lamenting. At daylight, the warriors take their bows and dance forceful marches to the grinding tuba, cymbals whirring with each arrow shot.

Today Fokine comes in for a fair bit of stick over his clumsy approximations of ethnic dances. The theme of conquest, military and sexual, is tastefully subdued within the classical technique, and this may invite derision from those captive of political correctness. But the pacing energetically follows the music’s rising clamor. Prince Igor is nowhere to be found, except in the audience. The dances are performed in a spirit of tribute to us. The choice to stage an expensive production puts out the rumor that financial constraints are reducing the repertory to cheaper, gala-circuit pas de deux.

Fokine’s “Le Spectre de la Rose” began the evening. If “Polovtsian Dances” is a broad gestalt, this famous work falls somewhere in the middle distance. Two large French windows in Robert Perdziola’s drawing room enclose this storybook encounter between a turn-of-the-century debutante and her imaginary beau. But the moonlight hints at a magical world outside. Xiomara Reyes settles into her role as the young girl half-asleep, intoxicated by the spirit of the rose, played feverishly by Herman Cornejo.

From the moment he appears, Mr. Cornejo’s athleticism sprouts audible gasps from the audience. He enters in his horticultural leotard through the open window, teasing his hands over his head in tendril-like gestures. He leaps and turns around the stage to Von Weber’s lively waltz. Watching his maneuvers, it becomes clear how conducive a waltz is for bravura dancing, counting in triple time (“ready-setgo”) before taking off on the accented beat. He casts a vigorous enchantment, luring Ms. Reyes out of her chair.

Her portrayal finds a dramatic ease from the very beginning, using his arm to support herself in a deep penchee but slowly putting her head down as if to fall back to sleep. In her dollhouse dress, she makes disoriented spins, culminating in traveling pirouettes that reach the exultant finale of her crashing onto the cushions again.

Both Ms. Reyes and Mr. Cornejo were the cast in the revival premiere of the work last fall, following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Alicia Alonso, Igor Youskevitch, and Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina. The rose is a source of potent nostalgia, not only for the young girl but the company’s own artistic relationship with Fokine. He staged the work himself for ABT just before he died.

As a kind of tutelary figure, he was nevertheless neglected for many years. Now only the scenario survives, brought brilliantly to life by the costumes and set, but more or less completely reinterpreted in Kirk Peterson’s staging. The revival is part of the company’s larger obeisance being paid to Fokine in the upcoming “Fokine Celebration.”

While it may look corny as a period piece, this performance at least succeeded in delivering nuance and charm. If they weren’t exactly dancing Fokine, they were relishing dance’s ephemeral fragrance, literally leaping at the occasion, just as the young girl leaps from her chair upon waking, smelling the rose once more.

Another waltz followed in an excerpt from Act II of “Swan Lake.” The two flanks of the corps glow on the dark stage in this ballet blanc. They pivot enticingly close together and then back away, making room for Julie Kent as Odette. She demurely folds up during the strain of a violin. She brings a depth to the “White Swan” pas de deux rarely summoned up during an isolated gala performance. When Vladimir Malakhov consoles her, she elongates beautifully with soft gestures, pushing his arms to prepare him for a downy faint. She exhibits competing emotions, wariness and absorption, beginning to form an arabesque, but forcing instead her knee up to her chest in a protective gesture.

For a completely different flavor, a solo by Savion Glover, “Piece d’Occasion,” began the second half of the evening. He tapped bigheartedly to the “Dance of the Comedians” from Smetana’s opera “The Bartered Bride.” On a raised skid, dust stirred up under his feet as he galloped over different terrains (again, a three-beat rhythm). He slowed down occasionally to a canter, sometimes using the boards to create the hollow sound of entire herds romping through the plains. Surprisingly, his relatively minimal movements opened up the imagination.

In Iain Webb’s staging of Ronald Petit’s “Carmen” pas de deux, Alessandra Ferri and Julio Bocca held each other grippingly in the tango-inspired score by Bizet. A fiery Spanish intimacy finds its breathtaking expression in Mr. Bocca, who supports her as a table would, while Ms. Ferri balances her belly on his, staring down at him almost defiantly and lifting both legs up over her back like a scorpion’s tail.

The evening closed with “Don Quixote Suite,” 10 disparate virtuoso sections placed in the town square of Santo Loquasto’s celebrated set. The entire population seemed to watch from the balconies, clapping along to Maxim Belosekovsky, who as Basilio danced alongside the flower girls. Gillian Murphy in the “Kitri Variations from Act I” astounded with her imperturbable balances. Paloma Herrera performed with verve the “Kitri Variation from Act II,” hopping across the stage, chiming one leg against the other in a stupendous chasse.

The ABT men, Angel Corella and Carlos Acosta, gunned lethal sautes, flashy beats, and double assemble turns. But the highlight was Diana Vishneva, this year’s guest artist from the Kirov. in her adagio with Jose Manuel Carreno. As she raised one arm, the entire village did the same in deference and acknowledgment. Her technique is so solid she emasculates her bravura partner; even when she is tossed up and falls down into Mr. Carreno’s arms in an impossibly elegant fish dive, she still seems to be balancing him.