Nina Ananiashvili trained at the Bolshoi Ballet school in Moscow, joined the Bolshoi in 1981, and has been a principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre since 1993. In addition to these duties, Ms. Ananiashvili has assumed the responsibility of being the artistic director of the State Ballet of Georgia, the ex-Soviet Republic in the Caucuses, since 2004. Two weeks ago Ms. Ananiashvili and a sizable portion of her troupe performed “Giselle” twice at the Shubert theater in New Haven, Conn. as part of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, and last week they danced a mixed bill as the season opening attraction at Jacob’s Pillow.

I loved Ms. Ananiashvili’s Giselle when I saw it at ABT in 2002, but five years is practically a generation in a balletic life span, particularly when a dancer is over 40. In addition Ms. Ananiashvili took time off several years ago to have a child. Adding to the complications was the fact that I saw her second performance, and dancing Giselle on two consecutive nights isn’t easy for anyone.

Visually, Ms. Ananiashvili remains reasonably believable as Giselle, though her Romantic style isn’t very forthcoming. Instead, it comes and goes throughout her performance.

The casting of the production afforded some successes and some errors. It was a mistake, for example, to choose a dancer much younger than Ms. Ananiashvili to portray her mother. But Ms. Ananiashvili did herself and her audiences a service by choosing as her Albrecht the Bolshoi Ballet’s Sergei Filin. Not only is he an expert partner who has worked with her for years, but Mr. Filin is one of the world’s greatest male dancers. New York hasn’t seen enough of him: He was injured when the Bolshoi visited New York two years ago. At 36, he not only remains in his technical prime but commands infinite artistic resources. He doesn’t seem like a chameleon, but he is able to appear at home in every style of dance and role he assumes. His Albrecht was one of the best I’ve ever seen.

The Georgians began their program at Jacob’s Pillow with Balanchine’s “Mozartiana.” The lead couple was Nino Gogua and Lasha Khazashvili. “Mozartiana” was created by Balanchine, himself a Georgian, for Suzanne Farrell.

Ms. Gogua had clearly been drilled in Balanchine style and syntax, but “Mozartiana” is an exercise in Balanchine-for-Farrell. And Ms. Farrell’s personal style was based on risk: She courted the very things that most ballerinas, particularly young ones, fear: She never demonstrated any compunction about falling out of a pirouette, falling off pointe, or not conforming to canonical positions of the feet. Her musical timing was free and unpredictable. Ms. Gogua needs to loosen up, and dance the role with a less even musical approach.

Next was Trey McIntyre’s “Second Before the Ground,” originally created for the Houston Ballet in 1996. Performing to salon-style African sounds courtesy of the Kronos Quartet, 16 of the Georgians larked around in pop ballet style, with dabs of African custom threaded through. The dancers clearly relished the chance to do something less strict than most of their classical or neo-classical repertory.

At Jacob’s Pillow, Ms. Ananiashvili herself danced only in the closing “Don Quixote Grand Divertissement,” which she put together in 1993 with the Royal Danish Ballet’s Frank Anderson. It’s the kind of piece made for small touring groups of leading dancers. It packs easily and is designed to show off a slew of soloists. First, Ms. Ananiashvili and Mr. Filin danced the entrée and adagio from the Act III Grand Pas de Deux. Members of the company then appeared to perform highlights from different acts of the ballet, and finally, the two stars returned to dance bytes from the coda, mostly in unison with the soloists we’d just seen in the interval since the two stars had left the stage.

Both stars carried on professionally, but Ms. Ananiashvili had moments of strain and Mr. Filin seemed a little disoriented at being put into a four-member ensemble of grand-pirouette-turning men rather than being center stage. The dancers Ms. Ananiashvili chose to spotlight, however, were charming and accomplished.