Ballets commissioned by their leads do not have a particularly good track record. But this La Strada adaptation for Alina Cojocaru as the wide-eyed innocent Gelsomina gives cause for hope. Like the Fellini muse Giulietta Masina, the Romanian ballerina exudes a Chaplinesque open-heartedness. Joining Cojocaru are her husband and fellow former Royal Ballet star, Johann Kobborg, as the doomed clown Il Mati, and longtime La Scala principal Mick Zeni as the vicious strongman Zampanó. The circus setting, the Nino Rota score, and the motif of sin and redemption all bode well for a ballet adaptation. As for the choreographer, the Slovakian freelancer Natalia Horecna danced with the Hamburg Ballet and the Nederlands Dans Theater long enough to absorb their abstracted style and grandiose themes, at odds with La Strada’s magical neorealism. But her own work, for central European companies large and small, leans toward emotional directness. —Apollinaire Scherr