Something is wrong with the ballerina. During her late-night rendezvous in a forest clearing, she teeters awkwardly on point and fumbles through even the most basic steps. She destroys the classical line in her top-heavy arabesques, looking altogether out of place on stage with the world-class Bolshoi company. A shameful performance? Not quite: The ballerina is a man.

Travesty roles dominate the second act of “The Bright Stream,” a comic ballet from the 1930s that was banned under Stalin and revived last year by the Bolshoi under its new artistic director, 36-year-old Alexei Ratmansky. It is difficult to pick out today what Koba might have objected to so strongly – was it the depiction of a loose morality among the proletariat, or the sexualized metaphor of oversized cucumbers, gourds, and apples rolling across the stage? No matter, when “The Bright Stream” made its New York premiere on Monday evening, it almost brought down the Metropolitan Opera House.

The ballet itself has undergone quite a makeover; it now tones down the political message while hamming up the character dancing. Set in early autumn on a local collective farm called the Bright Stream, the story recalls the warm spell of Shakespeare’s midsummer in its tried-and-true scenario of mistaken identity. Bottom’s bewitchment as a donkey even finds a place in the animal masquerade of a tractor driver who dresses up as “Kolka the dog” to stave off the advances of one swaggering accordion player for the schoolgirl Galya.

The fun starts when a brigade of artists from Moscow visits the Bright Stream for the community’s annual harvest festival. Judging by the stacked bushels of grain in Boris Messerer’s set design, the farm will be enjoying a surplus this year. Ruddy and golden hues saturate the activity onstage. Village girls in light country dresses and headscarves faint into their lovers’ arms, and the corps gathers together for vigorous round dances. All the stock characters of socialist realism are here: an old farm activist, a milkmaid, field workers, quality inspectors. An ensemble of rustic men from the Caucasus Mountains also attends, supplying spirited folk numbers with crouching, outturned legs. White-suited bachelors from the dandified Kuban region join them with surefooted steps in the latest courtly dancing.

Meanwhile, romantic intrigue blows through like a mighty wind. The central actors are an agricultural student named Pyotr (Vladimir Neporozhny), and his wife, Zina, the collective “morale officer” responsible for organizing the diversions and entertainment. Superbly danced by Svetlana Lunkina, Zina will get more than she bargains for when Pyotr falls for the ballerina in the troupe from Moscow.

Several hilarious plot twists result from the ballerina’s irresistible charms. Waiting for the arrival of the train carrying the troupe from Moscow, Zina executes distracted batterie while reading a book, rising expectantly on point, and then literally getting bowled over by what she reads. The movement is crisp and witty; as it turns out, she used to be a dancer. She and the ballerina (a zesty Maria Antropova) recognize each other as old friends, and the two women hatch a convoluted plan to trap Pyotr in his infidelity. Zina forces herself to play the role of her own husband’s would-be mistress, performing an exotic gypsy dance with increasing pique.

In an extraordinary subplot, we meet an elderly man (Alexey Loparevich), who also has a wandering eye for the ballerina, despite his impaired vision. He and his wife, delightfully captured by Irina Zibrova (who is known in the program simply as the woman Anxious-To-Appear-Younger-Than-She-Is), add an element of French-style burlesque when they try to dance a geriatric chaconne. The wife topples over, but pretends it is a dip. As she trails off, her husband rescues her by initiating a promenade. He finally lets her waddle across the stage, lifting the hem of her dress. Upon her return, she climbs onto his shoulders for a spine snapping finale.

The troupe conspires to humiliate the elderly couple, and a gender-bending gambit ensues. Ms. Antropova dresses in her partner’s trousers to seduce the old lady, while Yan Godovsky puts on a flowing romantic tutu to meet her husband. Racing across stage with both arms stretched forward in the manner of a fleet sylph-like spirit, Mr. Godovsky left little room to breathe between fits of laughter.

Throughout “The Bright Stream,” it comes as a relief not to see the Bolshoi so emotionally overwrought. Heard without dancing, Dmitri Shostakovich’s score is cranky and formulaic. But in the pit, it enlivens the movement, at times sounding joyous. By replacing Fyodor Lopukhov’s original choreography with his own, Mr. Ratmansky has industriously separated the humorous tidbits of character dancing from the plainspoken chaff that gluts the momentum of most demi-caractere ballets. The result is a briskly paced romp through Stalinist Russia, as well as a tribute to the artists who lived under his rule.

“The Bright Stream” will be performed again tonight at 8 p.m. (Lincoln Center, 212-501-3410).