Created for the San Francisco Ballet, Mark Morris’s “Sylvia,” which received its New York premiere Wednesday night at the New York State Theater, often seems like a salute to California itself. The backdrop to Act III could be the Getty Museum, and throughout the evening the ghosts of California modern dance matriarchs Ruth St. Denis, Martha Graham, and Isadora Duncan seem to hover overhead. Much of the ballet seems indebted to the state’s film industry.

The sets, designed by Allen Moyer, and the costumes, by Martin Pakledinaz, frequently resemble those more commonly found on a silent-film soundstage. Though the villain Orion’s gang in Act II seems drawn from the galley slaves in 1925’s “Ben Hur,” there is a distinctively Dorothy Lamour, World War II pin-up aesthetic to Sylvia and her handmaidens in Act I. At times throughout the first two pleasant, but sometimes tepid, acts, I awaited the arrival of a cinematographer who could liven up the proceedings by interjecting editing caroms or multiple points of view. In the third act, however, Mr. Morris’s talents as pasticheur, ironist, and vernacular explorer came into focus, eliminating the need for cinematic intervention.

Mr. Morris has not tampered with the storyline, but he mines the opportunities that “Sylvia” presents to explore sexual identities, a career-long theme in his work. In Act I, he pronounces the lesbian subtext, suggestively nestling amazons on the floor against each other, and giving Sylvia a handmaiden with whom she is particularly cozy. Eros gets very touchy feely when reviving Aminta in Act I, and his taste for disguises includes an abbreviated beaded flapper dress.

The wisdom of Mr. Morris’s decision to put “Sylvia” on pointe remains an open question, though it does pleasantly accommodate the company’s own capabilities. Modern dance choreographers’ forays into pointe work can be treacherous, and though Mr. Morris first choreographed for pointe 20 years ago, experience does not necessarily translate into organic facility. His pointe work in “Sylvia” has, at times, the stiff and abrupt character of a faux-primitive 1920’s ballet by Bronislava Nijinska. But Nijinska trained in the classical traditions she chose to refute, and her gruffness seemed discretionary.

Morris’s bluntness, at least with respect to pointework, doesn’t always read as deliberate.And though his pointework was sometimes crude, his pantomime wasn’t as evolved as I would have expected.In the original 1876 production at the Paris Opera, dancers performed Act II of the ballet principally in pantomime. (Frederick Ashton added a lot more dancing to his 1952 version, recently performed by ABT.) Oddly, Mr. Morris uses neither his own characteristic pantomime vocabulary nor that of any other school of mime. Nor does he make the act noticeably more kinetic. We wait for a bacchanal that never really comes to a boil. Part of the problem may be that Mr. Morris allowed the scenery, in particular an enormous boulder, to dominate the stage here.

Mr. Morris’s “Sylvia” is a very allusive production, steeped in post-modern history. In Act III, his frolics through the clover fields of dance history coalesce delightfully. Sylvia’s solo is somewhat Balanchinian, a tip of the hat to the pas de deux that Balanchine made to extracts from Delibes’s score in 1950, and it also contains direct quotes from Ashton’s Act III solo. Sylvia’s nuptial pas de deux with Aminta is performed with a veil that binds, separates, and engulfs them in a way that recalls the work of St. Denis as well as of Petipa’s “La Bayadere.” Mr. Morris also gives Aminta a savory solo in which he whirls off-balance like a gamboling mountain goat, and the way we were reminded again that he is a shepherd was one of the best things about the production.

On Wednesday night, San Francisco Ballet’s principal dancers gave international caliber performances. As Sylvia, Yuan Yuan Tan’s steps, stance, and appearance all projected beautifully. She seemed like a real ballerina, more so than at Tuesday night’s opening gala.

Gonzalo Garcia looked unflappable in his solo and proved a superb partner. Ms. Tan, who is very tall, went sailing through the big lifts in the Act III coda. As Orion, Yuri Possokhov was handsome and vivid. He plans to retire from performing this year, but he accomplished the brief technical passages in his role neatly. Mr. Morris’s Diana is an alternately heroic and prosaic character, who responds with an “Aw, shucks,” when she discovers that it was Eros who tricked her into giving her blessing to the union between Aminta and Sylvia. Muriel Maffre was capable of working all the role’s angles. Mr. Morris’s Eros is less catalytic than Ashton’s, but is given more dancing to do, and Jaime Garcia Castilla gave a notable account of the steps and the role.

Mr. Morris’s “Sylvia” is a curiosity and a lot of the choices he’s made seem puzzling. Repeated viewings may solve some of the mysteries, but there is no doubt that we saw the company perform at its best.

Until July 30 (Lincoln Center, 212-721-6500).