Worse, Nureyev thumbs his nose at artistic line, Boston Ballet’s traditional strength, in favor of rank virtuosity, which it doesn’t have, and photo ops, which it doesn’t need. Saturday afternoon, new principal Erica Cornejo (from ABT, where she was a soloist), dancing with guest San Francisco principal Gonzalo Garcia (she was scheduled to dance with Roman Rykine, but he’s injured), made Kitri flow, with a classical line and a big, knowing smile. If she wasn’t quite as Gibraltar-like as the opening-night Kitri/Dulcinea, Lorna Feijóo, in her first-act relevé-passé passage (actually, no one is) and her finale fouettés, she had a more supple back and something in reserve for Dulcinea’s beats-while-traveling-on-pointe, and at least one of her third-act balances was pellucid. Not the second coming of Nina Ananiashvili (same big smile and eye-popping bravura in the Perm State Ballet video) but a treasurable acquisition. Garcia himself would be a welcome addition: an easy authority, more speed than any of the company’s male principals and a more cogent line, soft-edged barrel turns that weren’t the equal of Yury Yanowsky’s Thursday or Nelson Madrigal’s Friday but whippier and straighter tours à la seconde, and he made Cornejo look like the poster girl for supported arabesque on pointe.

A FOR ALTITUDE: You can’t fault the dancers’ effort.

Ten years ago, among company principals Patrick Armand, Paul Thrussell, Rob Wallace, and Olivier Wecxsteen, Garcia would have been just another good dancer, but in today’s Boston Ballet he’s a star, his technique and imagination and panache a rebuke to what we’re missing. The opening-night Basilio, Yury Yanowsky, was strong and focused, but there was no spontaneity in his partnering of Feijóo, and no freedom of execution. (He’s also too Clark Gable–like for the part.) Feijóo, whose fouettés redefine “solid,” is nuanced in her acting (her “kissy-hands” mime and stomp on Basilio’s foot were without peer) but not always in her line, and she and Yanowsky looked at the audience more than they did at each other. On Friday night, Larissa Ponomarenko and Nelson Madrigal did a better job of preserving the fourth wall, and Ponomarenko, in her 13th year with this company, more than compensates with class and artistic detail for what she lacks in flamboyance. Madrigal, whose stamina is always suspect, held his shape and gave the part a boyish slyness.

Perhaps Jennifer Gelfand and Pollyana Ribeiro, both of whom danced Kitri/Dulcinea in 2003, wouldn’t have been so sorely missed if second soloist Misa Kuranaga (stress fracture) and principal Tai Jiménez had been available. But the three Don Quixotes (Pavel Gurevich, Mindaugas Bauzys, Sabi Varga), and Sancho Panzas (Raul Salamanca, Joel Prouty, Daniel Sarabia) I saw included some pretty good actors, and apart from some poignance from Varga in the vision scene, no one could make anything out of Nureyev’s nothing. There’s hardly more on the table for Lorenzo (Viktor Plotnikov, always welcome) or Gamache (Jared Redick, James Whiteside). The three Street Dancers (Melissa Hough, Karine Seneca, Melanie A tk ins) had attitude to burn; Atkins and Bauzys were the most charismatic pairing of Street Dancer and Espada. Romi Beppu was Disney-cute as Amor opening night but better cast as the Queen of the Dryads on Saturday, with untroubled Italian fouettés that were right on the beat. Joining her and Cornejo Saturday was Tempe Ostergren as an inviting but also inscrutable Amor. As the opening-night Queen of the Dryads, Karine Seneca was authoritative apart from a late slip; Friday night both Lia Cirio (Queen) and Rie Ichikawa (Amor) seemed a little stiff. Best matched of Kitri’s Friends were Kathleen Breen Combes and Melissa Hough on Friday night.

The corps, especially the men, look good (credit new ballet master Eldar Aliev?), there’s no lack of energy, and it would be hard to grump about what Cornejo and Garcia and Atkins and Bauzys and Beppu and Ostergen made out of the Saturday matinee. But this is a creaky, cluttered ballet in search of a story and the kind of detail spied during Friday’s curtain call when one of Kitri’s Friends (Breen Combes, still in character) refused to take Gamache’s hand. Is a Don Quixote that makes sense an impossible dream?

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Don Quixote | Choreography by Rudolf Nureyev after Marius Petipa | Music by Ludwig Minkus, adapted and arranged by John Lanchbery | Staging by Aleth Francillon | Sets and costumes by Nicholas Georgiadis | Lighting by Karim Badwan | Presented by Boston Ballet at the Wang Theatre through October 29