Watching New York City Ballet revive “Jewels” Tuesday night after a two-year absence, I wondered at times whether late in the two-month NYCB season was really the best time to mount this demanding ballet. The company certainly did not field its strongest possible lineup; some of the casting was experimental to the point of being almost inappropriate.

Ashley Bouder is talented enough that one is willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in any role that she tries, but as the saloniste cum water sprite ballerina who begins “Emeralds,” she was lost, with clunky phrasing, furiously drubbing bourrées, and arms that glowered when they were meant to be lyric. Instead of being an ecstatic culmination, her second duet with Stephan Hanna at times had almost the flavor of a wrestling match.

As danced by Alina Dronova, Ana Sophia Scheller and Sean Suozzi, the “Emeralds” pas de trois was overwrought. Ms. Scheller was making her debut in it, and Mr. Suozzi was dancing a role that is more classical than most of his repertory, and the whole thing seemed edgy and fitful.

The most idiomatic element in this “Emeralds” was Jenifer Ringer. As the solitary sojourner in forest primeval, she fielded tricky coordinations in her alternately curious, ruminative, and exploratory circuits of the stage. Attenuated and attentive, Jonathan Stafford was a fitting cavalier for her in their gallant and melancholy “walking on air” duet later in the ballet.

“Rubies” fared better than “Emeralds.” With pint-sized Megan Fairchild and Joaquin De Luz in the lead roles of tart Manhattan sophisticates, “Rubies” was in danger of having something of a toy shelf flavor, but both dancers put themselves in the state of body and mind required. Ms. Fairchild was loose, elongated, and slinky, while Mr. De Luz appeared to have studied all the company men’s different interpretations — as well as the Kirov Ballet’s — and synthesized his own, well-balanced interpretation in which swagger, fisticuffs, soft shoe, and princely grace all took part in the right degrees.

Companies around the world have a tendency to toss youngsters into roles while they are still unprepared. Yet Savannah Lowery’s youthful gaucheries are genuinely appealing; it is hard not to warm to her willingness to throw herself into whatever she performs. She first danced the “Rubies” soloist — the Amazonian “pinup,” in many shorthand descriptions — in 2004, when she was younger and even more unguarded than she is today. On Tuesday night she again plunged headfirst into the role, for which she has all the things required: the jump, the extensions, the legs that can pretzel into figure-eights, the madcap temperament.

Finally, the wintry gleam of “Diamonds” brought us Maria Kowroski in place of the scheduled Wendy Whelan. In the adagio, Ms. Kowroski’s arabesque was wondrous in the “Swan Lake” allusions and was pristinely contained in the stricter classical quotations, and she seemed on intimate terms with the Tchaikovsky score. Ms. Kowroski and her partner, Philip Neal, tried, and to an extent succeeded, to maintain the emotional tension of the adagio’s alternately separate and connecting passages, but they need more experience together in this ballet to truly uncover all it is meant to say. The very long “Diamonds” adagio is followed by a scherzo in which the ballerina dances flurries of rapidly unspooling steps, and, to top it all off, a lengthy polonaise finale with corps de ballet. Ms. Kowroski negotiated more than a draw in the scherzo, but was tuckered out by the time the polonaise whirled its last pirouette. Mr. Neal’s solos were quite tidy.