History came to life at San Francisco Ballet on Tuesday, March 15, for Program Four — and that included the history in the making of our moment.

At the end of “The Seasons,” a co-commission with American Ballet Theatre long delayed in its premiere here due to the pandemic, choreographer Alexei Ratmansky took a bow. Born in Russia but naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2016, Ratmansky lived in Kyiv, Ukraine, as a young boy and began his dance career at the Ukrainian National Ballet; his family is still in Ukraine. He was in Moscow creating a new ballet for the Bolshoi when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, and he immediately left. All last week he was in San Francisco working with the Ballet, returning to a supportive artistic home. Bounding onstage Tuesday, Ratmansky seemed exultant as he applauded the dancers. Then he drew from his blazer a large blue and yellow Ukrainian flag, beaming in defiant energy. The audience roared in support.

Most viewers probably didn’t know his connection with Ukraine prior to that moment, but they were already fans. Indeed the audience began shouting “bravos” during the performance of “The Seasons,” making it an improbable company hit.

True, Ratmansky has a long association in the city — San Francisco Ballet was the first U.S. company to commission him, in 2003 — but locally we have seen only his contemporary works and none of his research-driven reclamations of 19th century ballets (more on that in a moment). Then, too, the East Coast critics weren’t exactly rapturous about “The Seasons” when American Ballet Theatre unveiled it in 2019. “Overstuffed,” they called it, and “garish.” Both adjectives may still apply, but how strangely glorious those qualities seemed Tuesday, when the climactic pas de deux of this riot of color and relentlessly demanding dancing nearly moved me to tears.

A guide to Helgi Tomasson’s final San Francisco Ballet season

So what is “The Seasons”? It’s odd. The Glazunov score was commissioned by that genius innovator of classical ballet, Marius Petipa, and choreographed by him in 1900. The original choreography no longer survives though. Ratmansky referred to Petipa’s libretto, which has no story but does feature a wild cast of characters: a King of Snow who oversees ballerinas representing Frost, Hail and Snow; a Zephyr, a Rose and a Swallow who entwine at springtime; a summer Spirit of the Corn who gets accosted by Fauns and Satyrs in summer; and a Bacchus and Bacchante who blast through with lusty revels in autumn. Using all this, Ratmansky has crafted his own steps, and oh what steps they are.

Certain feats in ballet require so much precise calibration that choreographers usually give the dancer linking filler passages between. Not Ratmansky. A big jump that has to land on one leg will suddenly spring up into a pirouette. Actually, pirouettes have a way of springing out of all kinds of tricky lead-in steps in Ratmansky. But none of this looks like mere circus antics because Ratmansky also has a gift for making his dancers’ arms sculptural and at the same time gestural. When the line of women all scoop one arm overhead repeatedly in the Winter scene, curiously, it has an emotional impetus.

There were bobbles to spot Tuesday if you wanted to be persnickety, but by and large the dancers dazzled. It was a special thrill to see soloists Elizabeth Powell, as the Rose, and Isabella DeVivo, as Bacchante, do more than perhaps even they knew they could. Every principal shone, but Angelo Greco and Misa Kuranaga were so tenderly connected that an onlooker might get misty-eyed. Credit much of this swelling emotion to Martin West’s work conducting the orchestra, drawing big-hearted lyricism from the Glazunov. Tremendous credit also goes to the young girls on pointe from the San Francisco Ballet School in their red and black poppy costumes which, combined with the corps women in lavender and the corps men in robin’s-egg blue and hot pink, somehow endeared me to Robert Perdziola’s Kandisky-like visual scheme.

All of this and we haven’t even touched on the opening ballet, “Las Sylphide,” and its history — continuously performed since 1836 by the Royal Danish Ballet.

Principal Ulrik Birkkjaer began watching it there when he was only 6 years old, and he coached this revival of San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson’s staging, as well as starred as James on Tuesday night, to show us all how the gently bounding style of August Bournonville is really done.

Sarah Van Patten, who announced她将退休from the company next month, was the Sylphide, that Romantic-era fantasy of unattainable desire that lures James from his fiancée. Her portrayal was deliciously dotty (never trust a winged woman with such wide eyes).

Esteban Hernandez as James’ rival Gürn evidently took to Birkkjaer’s tutelage, and was especially marvelous with the mime. Madge the angry witch was masterfully played by guest artist Eva Kloborg, a performer with the Royal Danish for 56 years, who deserves a review unto herself.

San Francisco Ballet’s Program Four:Through Sunday, March 20. $29-$448. War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., S.F. 415-865-2000.www.sfballet.org