On Tuesday night American Ballet Theatre brought back “Le Corsaire,” looking tighter and fresher than it had in a while. “Corsaire” had become the ultimate cut-and-paste ballet well before ABT first performed it in 1998. Multiple choreographers and composers have all had their hand in what we now see onstage. The ballet is loosely based on Byron’s 1814 poem that perfectly answered his audience’s fascination with exotic climates and cultures and adventures. Verdi made an opera from it in 1848, and it first became a ballet in 1837 in London. ABT’s production is staged by Anna-Marie Holmes, based on a staging by ex-Kirov director Konstantin Sergeyev (the Kirov itself performs a staging based on a revival by ex-Kirov director Pyotr Gusev). Both Gusev’s and Sergeyev’s stagings are said to have been derived from Marius Petipa’s 1899 production at the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg, but they are constructed so differently that they are almost like two different choreographic texts, save for a few shared set pieces. Ms. Holmes follows the Soviet custom of Gusev and Sergeyev by editing pantomime down to a minimum, substituting dance wherever possible, and giving the men as many virtuoso steps to do as possible, frequently when a simpler exposition would suffice.

But the overkill that the production has seemed guilty of in the past wasn’t apparent on Tuesday. Flamboyant yet not garish dancing by all the leads accounted for the success of the performance, but what also helped was their approach to the many comic wrinkles of the story, which involves pirates, slaves and slave traders, harems, grottos, love, treachery, etc. However conventionalized, silly, and contrived it may seem (but no more, when it comes down to it, than many of our Hollywood movies), the plot does have its own validity and its own historical importance. ABT’s cast approached the story with the right ballet buffa attack. They were broad and raucous, but less campy and less conspiratorial with the audience than they have been in the past.

Paloma Herrera, replacing the originally announced Irina Dvorovenko, as Medora, was interesting in a role she has performed scores of times over the past decade. She can get a little furrowed going into fast, multiple turns, but in Act 2, her fouetté turns were both exciting and serene. It was a pleasure to see her jump with ease and lightness throughout the evening. She took advantage of the ballet’s many different vignettes, allowing her to present herself as a heroine and a ballerina of different colors and attributes. Xiomara Reyes was her friend and fellow slave Gulnare. Ms. Reyes was much better cast here than she had been at ABT’s opening night gala, when she was Medora. She didn’t give us technique-in-the-raw, but fully articulated and even at times refined balletic expression. There were no messy arms this time, no rushed or haphazard movements.

As pirate hero Conrad, Marcelo Gomes was shipshape, not only in full command of each technical string in his bow, but using his muscular but also flexible physique to create memorable shapes. Herman Cornejo rocketed through the role of the squirrelly slave trader Lankedem. Almost every step he executed on Tuesday was as brilliant as it was accurate. As Conrad’s indispensable slave Ali, Angel Corella harnessed his furious bravura energy to incendiary purpose and effect, without getting manic. Sascha Radetsky was Conrad’s false friend Birbanto. Mr. Radetsky has a technique, but not a steel-belted one, which means he doesn’t try to overreach, and sticks to dance, as he did here to advantage. Mr. Corella, Mr. Gomes, and Mr. Cornejo all have a lot of partnering to do, and they were impressively strong, secure, and magnanimous with their ballerinas.

In a production in which much choreography appears to date from much later than what is purported to be Petipa’s 1899 original, the steps given the trio of odalisques registers as creditably vintage both at the Kirov and at ABT. (But here they’re in Act 1, while at the Kirov they don’t appear until the third and final act). All three odalisques were outstanding on Tuesday night. Veronika Part executed her diagonal of pirouettes with redoubtable aplomb, and phrased them so that they became an integrated part of a long, singing line. Maria Riccetto’s brises were beautifully attuned to the woodwinds that cued them, and Kristi Boone was clarion in her emboîté variation.