Birds stand on one leg and fly, flutter, and swoop. Ballerinas stand on one pointe shoe and turn, stretch into arabesque, and jump or are lifted to suggest flight. The grace of these two species has long fascinated choreographers, many of whom have drawn parallels between their respective systems of movement, using ballerinas to evoke avian traits and capacities. A worthy inheritor of the ballerina bird tradition appeared on Friday night at New York City Ballet in the person of Wendy Whelan, whose bladed bones are suited to suggest ornithological construction. The occasion was the world premiere of Christopher Wheeldon’s new ballet, “The Nightingale and the Rose,” which is based upon an eponymous Oscar Wilde short story for children. The story combines Wilde’s deep cynicism about human affairs with his abiding belief in art, artfulness, and artifice — whether in the presentation of the self or in the creation of works of art.

In Wilde’s fable, a callow student, too clinical to either understand art or to ex perience deep passion, pursues a Profes sor’s Daughter, who will dance with the student only if he offers her a red rose She doesn’t want white, she doesn’t want yellow — she will accept only red. The Nightingale is a man’s-best-friend type and she is also a romantic. She searches high and low until finally a barren rose tree offers a solution: She must perch in the tree, and sing all night, and let the tree’s thorns drawn out her life blood in order to allow the tree to flower once again. By virtue of her sacrifice, the alchemy of art works its magic and a resplendent red rose is produced. But it is all for naught, for the thorn’s wounds are fatal to the Nightingale. The Student obliviously avails himself of the rose, only to be immediately rejected by the object of his affections, at which point he rejects love itself and goes back to his studies.

There aren’t many narrative ballets these days, and Mr. Wheeldon shows himself capable of telling a story. White, yellow, and red roses are personified by different clusters of dancers, and Ms. Whelan gets to submerge herself within the full vocabulary of avian movement similes. There are, however, depths to this parable that are unplumbed here, partly due to the limitations of the dance medium, but also to the score, which was commissioned from Bright Sheng, who conducted Friday night’s performance. Glossy strings and the echoing of brass pay homage to earlier scores by Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov that sent bird protagonists whirling and fluttering across the stage in ballets by Fokine and Balanchine. Mr. Sheng’s composition, however, proceeds at a businesslike clip, and doesn’t give Mr. Wheeldon much extra time to expound on anything.

The ballet is a vehicle for Ms. Whelan. At Friday night’s premiere, Tyler Angle was the Student and Sara Mearns the Professor’s Daughter. Both were able, but didn’t have much to do. Seth Orza and Craig Hall led a band of men who embodied the Red Rose, transporting the Nightingale, cortège-style, around the stage. The final participant in the ballet is the animation by James Buckhouse — a moon that sees all and sheds a tear; the Moon and the Nightingale are the sentimentalists in this particular Wildean kingdom. The accoutrements — costumes are by Martin Pakledinaz and lighting by Mark Stanley — are deluxe.

Friday night’s performance began with Peter Martins’s “Jeu de Cartes,” which was fizzily performed by Sterling Hyltin, Jared Angle, Benjamin Millepied, and Andrew Veyette. The evening concluded with Balanchine’s “Robert Schumann’s ‘Davidbündlertänze,” its shadows brightly illuminated by its eight-member cast: Maria Kowroski, Kyra Nichols, Jenifer Ringer, Jennie Somogyi, and Charles Askegard, Nikolaj Hübbe, Nilas Martins and Philip Neal.