New York City Ballet likes to take some performances at its annual “Nutcracker” season and chock them full of more debuts than raisins in a Christmas fruitcake. That was the case Saturday afternoon at the New York State Theater, when the second-act divertissements in the Kingdom of Sweets were largely populated by first-timers.

One doesn’t expect or demand complete assurance from a debut, but instead freshness, some hint of a novel quality, a certain minimum of technical readiness, and, above all, interest in and respect for the role.

The dancers here, though very young, appeared to be thoroughly versed in what their roles were meant to express. “The Nutcracker” is, in fact, a very good NYCB production in which to schedule debuts, because many of the debutantes will have grown up with and into the ballet, dancing in the children’s roles while students at the School of American Ballet. Saturday afternoon, the debuts were good enough that one looked forward to seeing the dancers perform their roles again.

Taking it from the apex of the “Nutcracker” hierarchy, Kathryn Morgan made her debut as the Sugarplum Fairy and Savannah Lowery as Dewdrop, leading the Waltz of the Flowers. Ms. Morgan does not descend from the majestic Sugarplum Fairy lineage so much as the smaller, fluffier, and delectable variety of glacé ruler. Her variation was excellent; she knew when to snap to attention with split-second musical exactitude, and when to prolong or delay slightly her attack to convey a pleasurable frisson of the right kind of entitled indolence. Her arms were lovely, both floating and declamatory.

Ms. Morgan’s debut path was smoothed for her in the Grand Pas de Deux by her Cavalier, Gonzalo Garcia, the ex-San Francisco Ballet dancer who joined the company a couple of months ago. He’s by now virtually a “Nutcracker” veteran, having made his own debut in NYCB’s “Nutcracker” several weeks ago, but also having already danced the role in Helgi Tomasson’s production in San Francisco.

Mr. Garcia is technically accomplished, but lacks the ideal danseur noble physique, which means that he must be doubly the danseur noble in manner and style to succeed in this type of role. On Saturday afternoon, he was not entirely there but was moving in the right direction. He was a supportive and responsive partner to Ms. Morgan, able to help her surmount some of the tricky solo-into-supported passages, so that her evident caution was able to register here as something more evocative.

Ms. Lowery’s Dewdrop took the audience on the roller-coaster ride one has come to expect from this dancer, who is characteristically inconsistent, but always compelling.

On Saturday afternoon, however, she did some things superbly, like her rapid effusions of passés, with her working leg raised quickly to the supporting knee. She can jump, but she strained sometimes, which made her jump more constricted than it otherwise might be. She’s tall, and moves boldly, but was sometimes too hard-charging. Most important, though, she commanded interest at all times.

Other dancers breaking the “Nutcracker” ice included Maya Collins in Hot Chocolate; she and her partner, Robert Fairchild, sizzled nicely in this pseudo-Spanish number. Ellen Ostrom as Coffee skillfully manifested the large- and small-scale insinuations of her Arabian dancing-girl role double-jointed exertions. Rachel Piskin had the right piquant flourish as the leader of the Marzipan Shepherdesses. As Tea, Matthew Renko jumped and landed well. Allen Pfeiffer’s Candy Cane was a bit of an anomaly because he’s tall for this jumping-through-a-hoop number, but he negotiated most of his twirls and swirls without a problem. When he became momentarily entangled with his hoop at the end of his variation, he was visibly contrite and the audience responded with sympathy. When he came out for some hoop twirling in the Coda, he nailed his leaps with an extra quotient of authority and determination, driving home one of the best aspects of debuts: The dancer’s nervousness, and his or her determination to make good, become part of the performance text.