For the last three Augusts, while much of Lower Manhattan succumbed to the ragtag and often risqué charms of the Fringe Festival, the dark-wood-and-glass big top known as the Spiegeltent has touched down from Belgium to offer a more refined flavor of decadence. “Absinthe,” a Cirque du Soleil-meets-“Moulin Rouge”-meets-Weimar Berlin-meets-“Borat” hodgepodge of airborne eye candy and earthy humor, has given New Yorkers a reason to set foot on the South Street Seaport. In fact, the title of the seaport’s other main attraction, “Bodies: The Exhibition,” would be equally applicable here.

The creators have tinkered with the set list each year, and while the hit-to-miss ratio should be a bit higher by this point, “Absinthe” once again delivers the salacious goods more often than not. Last year’s iteration featured, on the one hand, Julie Atlas Muz’s sublime realizations of the stripper’s mantra “You gotta have a gimmick” and, before the show, a dozen or so outdoor hammocks with stellar Brooklyn Bridge views. On the other hand, it was emceed by the aggressively belligerent Gazillionaire, who shoved half of a theater critic’s bare foot into his mouth. Ms. Muz is back this year, but so is the Gazillionaire. And despite Pier 17’s proximity to three of Olafur Eliasson’s hypnotic waterfalls, the hammocks are nowhere to be found. The sense of missed opportunities carries into the show’s uninspired opening number, featuring the capable Australian vocalist Kaye Tuckerman in full ’80s-rock-chick mode.

Rest easy, all you high-minded lechers. The lovely Ms. Tuckerman and her stiletto heels are a mere appetizer for the hard bodies that follow. With the exception of a lounge-lizard roller skater (and the Gazillionaire), the men are all really attractive, while the women range from really attractive to really, really attractive. (A case could be made for adding a third “really” in reference to the Ukrainian gymnast Princess Anya.)

After the Gazillionaire antagonized a number of gay patrons at a recent performance, the strapping, underwear-clad Duo Sergio more than made it up to them; at one point, the dark-haired Sergio held himself parallel to the ground with one hand on the moussed head of the blond Sergio, who then went on to do a squat thrust. Both wore nothing but briefs. The mixed-gender Duo Ssens imbue their intertwining trapeze routine with something rare in this genre: a genuine pulse of affection and sensuality. And Ms. Muz brings back both of last year’s sequences, including a torrid number that somehow finds the eroticism in a severed hand. Princess Anya, meanwhile, is in a category by herself. (I seem to recall she did something with Hula-hoops. Let me check my notes. Yes, Hula-hoops.)

As in the past, the difficulty of these routines is impressive but not unprecedented within cirque nouveau circles; rather, the intensity is bolstered as much by where the events take place (i.e., within inches of the front row and 20 feet overhead) as by what they are. Spinning legs and discarded bits of clothing routinely cross into audience territory, and at that same performance, the junior member of the acrobatic Anastasino brothers briefly found his way into an unsuspecting lap mid-tumble.

By the time Act 2 rolls around, even the evening’s missteps gain their footing. Staggering through the audience with a Champagne bottle in hand, Ms. Tuckerman delivers a delicious account of a drunken chanteuse, and even the Gazillionaire redeems himself as he and his chirpily vulgar assistant, Penny, embody Cirque du Soleil’s worst excesses in the naughty “Le Petite Merde #2.”

Still, even as the individual acts gain in effectiveness, they remain individual acts. The Spiegeltent paired “Absinthe” last year with the more plot-driven circus show “La Vie,” and the results were no less dazzling. (A new companion show, the “La Ronde”-themed “Désir,” opens next week.) “Absinthe” certainly has the talent and the sex appeal to remain required summer viewing for discriminating voyeurs. All it needs is a through line sufficient to turn the high-flying bits and the low-down bits into pieces of a whole rather than welcome respites from one another. Oh, and a few hammocks.

Until November 2 (Pier 17, South Street Seaport, 212-279-4200).