Choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti’s “Oltremare” — which had its world premiere by New York City Ballet Wednesday night — is “about” something. It seems to illustrate an empirical theme and topic, which makes it unusual in NYCB repertory.

Mr. Bigonzetti has made three works for this company, and he may have been originally recruited to show that this American troupe was open to European Expressionist style. These strains in choreography were shunned — if sometimes stealthily appropriated — during the old days, when Balanchine ruled his company.

In “Oltremare,” Marc Stanley keeps the stage lights low, and Mr. Bigonzetti keeps the mood largely plaintive. In front of a scrim, we see émigrés leaving the old country, migrating stage left to stage right, rhythmically stopping to sit on their valises and emote over them. It reminds one of the onward march of frontier settlers in Eugene Loring’s “Billy the Kid.” The scrim rises and the dancers are arranged in a semi-circle, redolent of masses huddled into steerage class. The dancers strike out into space in single count expostulations that scream, “Revolt!” Mr. Bigonzetti is partial to choral antiphonies: When the women are up, the men are down.

The ballet is danced by a five-couple ensemble who dance with two couples in the foreground: Tiler Peck with Ramar Amasar and Maria Kowroski with Tyler Angle. The costumes designed by Mr. Bigonzetti and Marc Happel take us into the working class circa 1910. Both Ms. Kowroski and Ms. Peck look splendidly “average,” and transform themselves into striking specimens of Everywoman.

The ballet contains multiple duets that aren’t distinct enough from each other to be communicating individual narratives. Instead, all the dancers are cut from a certain consanguineous cloth. There’s a punching and pulling in dynamic, a pattern of approach-avoidance, which is perhaps meant to suggest the sojourners’ conflicting feelings of loss and anticipation. Such differentiation as comes in the duets is dictated most of all by the particular idiosyncrasies of the performer, and Mr. Bigonzetti has certainly cast to advantage here. The height different alone between Ms. Peck and Ms. Kowroski serves to make their respective involvements look radically different. Andrew Veyette was also given a chance to shine in an uninhibited solo. “Oltremare” comes to a head in the duet between Ms. Kowroski and Mr. Angle, which suggests that cramped quarters, anxiety about a new life, and economic duress have taken their toll on relations between the sexes. After a full-cast rout, in which all kick up their heels as they did in their old village, Ms. Kowroski is framed in a golden spotlight before she begins to dance with Mr. Angle. She stands on his knees as he sits on the floor. They somersault or roll over each other. Sometimes they look like animals butting horns. He dangles her upside down, before they participate in a full-cast stretta that is redolent of a classic balletic finale. But here, Ms. Kowroski and Mr. Angle pat their hair back into place naturalistically as they disappear into the crowd.

On Wednesday night, the entire cast of “Oltremare” performed with terrific intensity. They really seemed to be unreservedly committed to doing whatever Mr. Bigonzetti asked of them. How much the ballet owes to the unstinting support they have given him will become clearer on future viewings. Bruno Moretti wrote the commissioned score, which sounds like well-scored movie music; the most frequent motif is an organ-grinding dirge.

Until February 24 (New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, 212-870-5570).