Despite a name that communicated the athletic connotation of a home-run derby, American Ballet Theatre’s “All-Star Tchaikovsky Spectacular” program delivered a fascinating glimpse into the many sides of the composer who helped revolutionize ballet music. Six works performed over the weekend highlighted different aspects of the composer’s genius. Balanchine’s superb use of the corps in “Ballet Imperial” and “Themes and Variations” drew attention to the complex harmonies of the orchestra. John Cranko’s pas de deux from “Eugene Onegin” caught his soaring romantic outbursts, Ivanov’s “Swan Lake” his thoughtful adagios. If this is pandering, it is pandering at its most educational and high-minded.

Very little can prepare a “Nutcracker” novice for the munificence of Balanchine’s “Ballet Imperial.” Inside the cascading blue and white drapery of the Winter Palace in Rouben Ter-Arutunian’s set design (after the decor by Mstislav Dobuzhinksy), Balanchine serves up a samovar-warming homage to Petipa and the Russian imperial tradition. No sooner does the male corps approach their female partners, whose arms are frozen in fifth position, than the ice begins to melt as they slowly lower their hands and deeply bow.

Although Tchaikovsky’s masterful Piano Concerto No. 2 was not conceived with dancers in mind, Balanchine uses the rhythmically textured score to formulate a series of increasingly elaborate variations. Stripped of incident, his choreography builds tension with the corps, a female soloist, and the cavalier. Finally the ballerina, performed opening night by Gillian Murphy, is crowned tsarina of the dance.

In other words this is a ballet of grand postponement, entrances and exits that always keep the other dancers at arm’s length. The pas de deux in the second movement begins with the ballerina moving down an aisle of yielding arms to embrace her partner in a penchee. It ends the same way, leaving the suitor subordinate. Even during the overture, the piano fades in and out behind the strings like the beacon light revolving atop the Peter-Paul fortress, which is depicted in the view of St. Petersburg on the painted backdrop.

The corps, light blue and navy blue, is followed by a flame-colored soloist, performed on Friday with punctuality by Michele Wiles, and by a stone-faced but equally ravishing Monique Meunier during the Saturday matinee. The real thrill was Stella Abrera’s interpretation of the role Saturday evening. Her animated phrasing, overly aggressive at times, was a delight to watch. Where Ms. Wiles was soft with her bourrees, Ms. Abrera stepped keenly.

Only after the corps completely thaws, forming two concentric circles swirling in opposite directions, does the ballerina enter into the picture. On Friday, with an annunciatory stride wholly befitting the role, Ms. Murphy traced a small circle with one foot, then the other. She fills out the motif, each gesture escalating with the pounding statement on the piano: first lifting a leg, then doing a single pirouette, and eventually forging a grand ronde de jambe. Paloma Herrera, a tactful but earthbound dancer on the whole, lacked the projection necessary the following afternoon. On the other hand, Veronika Part gave an expansive, accentual performance later that evening, while still turning on a dime.

Maxim Beloserkovsky and Marcelo Gomes were predictably regal in the role of the cavalier on Friday and Saturday evening, respectively. They both oversaw the exquisite symmetries of the Andante, steering the line of female corps into avian V-patterns, then alternating promenades with the two female demi-soloists, looping each under the other’s raised arms and settling them into facing arabesques, their limbs extended in each direction, like a snowflake. But soloist Gennadi Saveliev surprised, carving the air around him as he toured the stage with multiple cabrioles; his torso remained dignified as it floated through the air.

Balanchine originally staged “Ballet Imperial” for the American Ballet Caravan in 1941, seven years before his own company took root. The ballet was mainly performed in the South American republics. “Themes and Variations,” dating from the same period, closed each performance this weekend.

Paloma Herrera brought a flirtatious flair to her duet with Angel Corella, whose own hopping chasses on a diagonal downstage ignited like a roman candle into explosive leaps. But, as in “Ballet Imperial,” the corps dominated most of the work, framing and decorating the central couple. Four females step out in a melody line to face one another inquisitively, followed by the rest of the corps, which separates into perfect wedding-cake triads, taking turns spinning in and out.

Thus it is all the more entrancing when the corps work and leading roles unite in the ballerinas’ third variation. Eight intertwining dancers support her, dipping meditatively in a perfect arabesque. Ms. Wiles brought a lively musicality to her duet with Mr. Gomes on Saturday afternoon, shaking lightly one foot to the slurs on the violin, always one step out of reach. Set to the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 3 for Orchestra, the isolated variations find resolution in a catchy, almost singsong polonaise.

The pas de deux from John Cranko’s evening-length ballet “Eugene Onegin” shrugged St. Petersburg danse d’ecole for full-blooded Romantic theater. A mustachioed Julio Bocca plays Onegin as he confronts Princess Tatiana (Alessandra Ferri) in her boudoir during the closing scene of Act III (the program incorrectly ascribes this scene to Act I). The music is taken from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, also known as “Pathetique,” and the maudlin passage when Mr. Bocca throws himself at the feet of Ms. Ferri certainly lives up to that name.

The role of Tatiana brings considerable challenges. She must hide her old feelings for Onegin, who has returned a decade too late, just puckering with avowals. The pair’s partnering creates a balance established by mutual resistance. He lifts her; she covers her mouth. She spins away in consternation; he spins toward her in understanding. Resolute, but delicate, Ms. Ferri rises en pointe and walks away, only to fall into the arms of a kneeling Onegin behind her. In the final measures of a thunderous crescendo, she shreds his love letter and he leaves.

Julie Kent gave repeat performances of her gala role as the White Swan, partnered first by Jose Manuel Carreno, and then Vladimir Malakhov. (Unfortunately, her Saturday matinee performance with Mr. Malakhov of “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” was canceled.) Saturday evening, Amanda McKerrow replaced Ms. Kent’s lilting inwardness with a snappier articulation of the waltz tempo, garnering a large applause. Ms. Wiles followed as her evil double Odile in the Act III pas de deux. She brought just the right amount of queening indulgence to her reading with her canny arabesques and vindictive grin.

Xiomara Reyes and Herman Cornejo joined for the “Nutcracker pas de deux,” in Kevin McKenzie’s staging. Ms. Reyes gave toy-like turns, kicking up fairy dust to the vibraphone and culminating in imperturbable chaines across the stage. Throughout the showcase David LaMarche, Charles Barker, and Ormsby Wilkins traded conducting duties.

***

In the American Ballet Theatre’s version of “Don Quixote,” our delusional knight-errant is already deep into his adventures by the time the overture dies down. We see him trotting beside his squire, Sancho Panza, on the outskirts of Seville. They are captured under a spotlight, timelessly floating inside Santo Loquasto’s fan-shaped portrait of Spanish life. Don Quixote first spotted his ideal lady 400 years ago, but on Thursday night, in the figure of Diana Vishneva, we caught a glimpse of her, too.

Ms. Vishneva, a guest artist this season on loan from the Kirov, is a ballerina renowned for her individuality and exquisite plastique. Her portrayal of Kitri is less saucy than endearing as she plays with the affections of Basilio (Jose Manuel Carreno). In an effort to make him jealous, she was simply toothsome. In a tiered salmon-colored dress, she twirled in and out of Basilio’s arms to the accompanying drum roll.

Ms. Vishneva commands a formal precision that stuns the theater, especially when, during her variation in Act I, she reaches her zenith, literally, in a pair of vertical splits. She elicited a mayhem of approval during her traveling pirouettes along a diagonal file of toreadors. Not surprisingly, the greatest display of her skill at combining theatricality and bravura dancing came in Act III, as she balanced in arabesque unaided by her partner, then followed with a minute or so of double and triple fouettees, all the while fanning herself demurely.

For his part, Mr. Correno delivered an energetic performance. He embellished his solos with axis-centered spins and gravity-defying beats. David Hallberg, as the legendary matador Espada, summoned ample haughtiness. He manipulated his golden cape while his admirer, the spitfire Mercedes – played by Ms. Vishneva’s fellow Kirov alumna Veronika Part – sported beneath it. Ms. Part is all black-ruffled flamboyance as she slaloms around the stakes in the village game.

As the gypsy girl, Sarawanee Tanatanit helped to broaden the palette of possible movements with barreling strides and spirited backward crunches in the air. Don Quixote’s vision scene introduced a sportive and vigorous Amour in Sarah Lane, who adorably grabs her chin as she bows. She pulls Don Quixote gently away as he reaches out for his Dulcinea, realized with the larger-than-life sensibility by Michele Wiles. Quixote (Victor Barbee) and the aristocrat Gamache (Guillaume Graffin), both shambling, create high- and low-minded complements to each other in this production, most likely as a result of the trimmed-down narrative.

ABT’s full-evening version has little more continuity than the suite of dances stitched together for the opening gala. In order to showcase all the bravura dancing, Kevin McKenzie’s staging of the Petipa/Gorsky choreography dispenses with much of the Bolshoi’s dramatic exposition in Act I: the intervention of the servants on Don Quixote’s behalf, the burning of his medieval romances, his rehabilitation of Sancho Panza from a petty thief to his sidekick, even the comical investiture in his own ragtag armor and shaving-bowl helmet. The result is a production that feels curiously tenuous in the end, like a weave unraveled as a result of some small annoyance. Fortunately, audiences will be able to compare for themselves on July 18, when the Bolshoi brings its version to the Metropolitan Opera House.

“All-Star Tchaikovsky Spectacular” will be performed again tonight, June 1 & 2 at 8 p.m. and June 1 at 2 p.m. (Lincoln Center, 212-477-3030).