Boy loves girl. Prince enchanted by princess. Or swan queen, sylph, fairy, doll, peasant girl or courtesan.
The central narrative elements of the full-length story ballets familiar to audiences mostly share a single element: The central romantic relationship is between male and female characters. Since many of these ballets (“Giselle,” “Swan Lake,” “The Sleeping Beauty”) date from the 19th century, that’s not surprising. But well into the 21st century, ballet — unlike opera, film or theater — has been slow to take up the challenges of telling other kinds of tales.
That changed last month, with the Australian Ballet’s premiere of “Oscar,” about the life of Oscar Wilde. Choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon and set to a score by Joby Talbot, it is the first full-length narrative ballet that makes a gay hero and his love for another man its central subject.
In a video call, Wheeldon pointed out that Matthew Bourne’s “Swan Lake — which featured an unhappy, repressed prince falling in love with a fiercely alluring male swan — was a groundbreaking forerunner, although not a classical ballet. But since then, he said, almost no narrative dance work has put a gay romance at its heart. David Bintley’s 1995 “Edward II” depicted something of the king’s relationship with Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall, but even the Yuri Possokhov-Kirill Serebrennikov “Nureyev” at the Bolshoi almost entirely skirted the issue of the dancer’s sexuality.
It was time for something more. “I wanted us to be a company that tells stories that resonate, to be bold in our storytelling,” said David Hallberg, the artistic director of the Australian ballet. “Oscar Wilde wrote these beautiful tales, but was persecuted in a way that is still true for many people today.”
Wheeldon, a major choreographer, clearly likes a narrative challenge. He has created the full-length “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Winter’s Tale” and “Like Water for Chocolate” for the Royal Ballet, and directed and choreographed (and won Tony Awards for) two Broadway shows, “An American in Paris” and “MJ: The Musical.”
For “Oscar,” he decided not to hew to a linear biographical story line. Instead, he weaves two of Wilde’s stories — “The Nightingale and the Rose” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” — into the narrative of Oscar’s rise to fame, and his affairs with the journalist Robert Ross (nicknamed Robbie) and the poet Lord Alfred Douglas (known as Bosie).
“Queer men in ballet have had to play straight men all their lives,” Callum Linnane, who danced the role of Oscar at the ballet’s premiere, said in a video call. “Here they can be true to themselves for the first time. And for the heterosexual men, it’s great to realize ‘Now I am going to do something different.’” The experience, he added, “felt extremely special and significant.”
The critics agreed. “A bold and imaginative work — and a thrilling demonstration of the Australian Ballet’s ambition,” wrote Richard Watts on Artshub.com.
The ballet, which debuted at the Regent Theater in Melbourne, Australia, will be performed at the Sydney Opera House Nov. 8-23.
In a video call with Wheeldon in Italy and Hallberg in Australia, the two men discussed telling stories for today, the dynamics of a male pas de deux, and showing delicacy and romance in a queer relationship. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.
What was the genesis of “Oscar”?
DAVID HALLBERG Chris and I have been friends and worked together at various times for more than 20 years, and when I became director at the Australian Ballet, I said to him that my dream was to have him create a work for the company. I didn’t have a full-length ballet idea, but I had a full-length wish.
CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON Fresh and full of dreams. How are you feeling now?
HALLBERG Four years in fresh. From the start, I questioned how we resonate with today’s audiences. We perform the classical repertory with respect and enthusiasm, but what stories are we telling? When Chris mentioned the life and writings of Oscar Wilde as a possible subject, I thought it was a story that people could connect with, the kind of story that ballet hasn’t done much of.
WHEELDON I became interested in Oscar Wilde after I joined the New York City Ballet in 1993. I saw the movie, “Wilde,” with Stephen Fry, and realized how little I knew about his life, the relationship with Bosie and his demise. I created a ballet based on his story “The Nightingale and the Rose” for [the New York] City Ballet in 2007, but the one-act work didn’t satisfy my curiosity about him. I started thinking about doing something that would weave biographical elements into stories I love. I think he wrote himself into all of his work; sometimes you see it in the wit and charm and brilliance of the characters in the stories, sometimes through the inner fears and desires they embody.
When David and I first talked about me choreographing for the Australian Ballet, I think I suggested it there and then.
David, did you have any hesitation about presenting an openly gay story to your audience?
HALLBERG Personally, no. I did tell the board that there is subject matter here that might offend some. But internally I had nothing but support; they were honored that Chris was doing this for us. There was certainly a lot of interest and buzz around opening night. I felt, yes, our supporters are here, but also a very young L.G.B.T.Q.+ audience, most of them new to the Australian Ballet.
WHEELDON What I am proud of is that we show the tenderness and romance and beauty of a queer relationship. There is a strong and quite dark culture that remains around gay culture, possibly because a lot of gay men feel they have to hide. We do explore that in “Oscar,” but at its heart, it’s a love story.
Chris, how did you structure the narrative?
WHEELDON I came fairly early on to the idea of melding Oscar’s writings and his life, and I chose two stories that seemed to me to represent his ideals, especially around sacrifice for love. It was hard not to dip into his wonderful frothy, witty plays, but these two tales had parallels for me with Oscar’s life, ideas and aesthetic.
Act 1 is quite linear, with scenes from Oscar’s life and relationship with Robbie Ross interwoven with “The Nightingale.” Act 2 is more of a fever dream memoryscape, with “Dorian” interwoven with Oscar in his cell, remembering falling in love with Bosie and the catastrophic effects of that affair, which lead to his trial and imprisonment. It’s a more symphonic structure, a shifting collage.
Was choreographing pas de deux for two men a technical challenge?
WHEELDON I have created a few pas de deux for men in my career, and of course, the weight shifts are very different, lower to the ground and off pointe. The challenge is more about conveying the softer delicacies of love between two men through a more romantic language within that grounded movement.
There were quite a few instances where we were dealing with quite physically intimate moments. David brought in a wonderful intimacy coordinator, Amy Cater; I think she was coaching me more than the dancers, who are a different generation. It was made clear to the dancers that if they felt uncomfortable about anything they should be free to say so and they would not be thrown out of the ballet. But barely an eyelid was batted.
What did you both learn from the experience?
HALLBERG For 20 years, the ballet world expected me to get on with falling in love with Juliet or a bird or a sleeping princess. I was so thrilled that some dancers told me that they had never thought they could feel as honestly represented in their careers as they had been here.
WHEELDON I feel like Act 2 of “Oscar” is a departure for me in the way I tell stories. The freedom of a more nightmarish, poetic landscape enabled me to combine the classical vocabulary with a more broken, psychologically-driven language.
And I really enjoyed trying to find the feathery delicacy of love between two men, exploring the softness and beauty and feminine qualities of the movement. I learned a lot from Amy about building the tension that leads to an intimate moment.
One of the dancers playing Oscar told one of his teachers he was going to kiss a man onstage for the first time in front of his parents.
That’s a beautiful thing, to feel proud and free to represent who you are as a human being.
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