What's in a name? A lot, in the case of the Bolshoi, the Moscow-based ballet and orchestra that opened a North American tour in Boston last night.

"Raymonda," the full-length work the company danced, doesn't have quite the same name recognition. One of the few survivors from the late 19th century repertory, it isn't at the level of the Petipa/Tchaikovsky masterworks. The charming score by Glazunov and remnants of the original Petipa choreography remain, although it's Yuri Grigorovich, who ruled the Bolshoi for three decades until he was ousted in 1995, who gets top billing as choreographer: Hence the Soviet-style lifts with ballerina perched on her partner's upstretched arms, like a platter carried by an expert waiter.

The Bolshoi "Raymonda" goes on for three hours, and makes you understand why Balanchine and others took the best bits of the music and created tight works with names like "Raymonda Variations." The Bolshoi version isn't attuned to a 21st century pace; to get anything out of it you have to slow yourself down, as if you were spending an afternoon looking at passing clouds. Then you'll notice the ballet's sumptuousness, the seemingly endless drapery, the seemingly endless number of nubile corps de ballet members arranging themselves like artful flower beds.

The setting is a medieval court at the time of the Crusades. The decor is borrowed from International Gothic. The plot barely exists: The male half of the happy, regal young couple goes off to war; a lovelorn Saracen attempts to abduct the heroine only to be defeated in swordplay by the lover, back in the nick of time. The couple embrace.

"There's another act?" my companion asked after we'd reached what could have passed for an ending. There is another act, and it's the reason to see "Raymonda." After all the preening and parading are over, after the Infidels have been chased away, there's the wedding, where all pretense of plot is abandoned. Thank goodness. The dancing wakes up.

As Raymonda, Nadezhda Gracheva was skilled but mannered, as if she'd performed the part a few too many times. Her partner, Sergey Filin, was a more dynamic presence. As the smitten Saracen, Dmitry Belogolovtsev looked like he'd studied Rudolf Valentino movies. The hokiest moment was the pas de deux for Raymonda and the Saracen: It's tough to reject an unwanted suitor convincingly when he's holding you up as you pirouette, and Gracheva and Belogolovtsev didn't manage the effect.

The finest dancing came from Maria Alexandrova and Ekaterina Shipulina, cast as Raymonda's friends. The famous male quartet with the double tours en lair was ragged.

What the Bolshoi still has going for it is artistic consistency. What it needs is a mega-dose of vitamins.