Arriving at the Oscar première on 13 September felt like attending an Oscars ceremony. The foyers of Melbourne’s historic Regent Theatre were filled with artists, journalists, photographers, politicians, dauntingly tall drag queens, and streams of gay couples who may have been first-timers at the ballet. The production signals a departure from The Australian Ballet’s standard repertoire. Oscar is the first full-length gay-themed ballet performed by an Australian classical company. And the capacity audience was ready for it, as a standing ovation proved two hours later.

An underlying factor behind the creation of Oscar in Australia is the paucity of choreographers who create original, long-lasting narrative ballets. This forces our companies to commission abroad, as artistic director David Hallberg acknowledged on stage before the performance began, when he talked about commissioning leading British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon to produce a new work.

Oscar arises out of Wheeldon’s fascination with Wilde’s writing since his youth: hence his decision to investigate Wilde’s short life (he died aged forty-six in 1900, three years after being released from prison). Wheeldon’s musical collaborator of some ten years is another Briton, Joby Talbot, a much-sought composer across several fields. The intensity and depth of their research and creative practice is remarkable in an art form too often built on feelings.

Visually, Oscar unfolds as an album of scenes of the life, times, and demise of a man whose witty plays, such as An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, were withdrawn in 1895 when he was found guilty of sodomy. The ballet – a massive, well-built beast of action demanding constant attention to ever-changing themes, shapes, and emotions – is set in excellent Victorian stage and costume designs by Jean-Marc Puissant.

The choreography and music for Oscar form cycles of shape-shifting theatre/dance slang for hiding and reappearing to different kinds of Victorian music, from social and theatrical dancing to lively pub music. Luxurious tones reflect lines from Wilde’s poems, such as the gentle score for The Nightingale and the Rose, and as contemporary patterns and mounting noise emerge, then all falls away as the drama begins to fade.

Oscar opens with a prologue, a burst of dancers dressed as barristers. They build a courtroom for Oscar’s second court case soon after he sued the bitter marquess of Queensberry, father of his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas (known as ‘Bosie’), for libel. The stage is frenetic until Oscar is accused of gross indecency and imprisoned for two years. Shaken in his dismal cell, he thinks of his family and floats back to playing with his two sons and speaking with his wife, Constance. They look secure and happy together until Oscar recalls The Nightingale and the Rose, the tale of a nightingale that will sacrifice itself to help a student who loves a selfish woman who demands he brings her a rare red rose before she will dance with him, only to be dumped, as Oscar has been.

Callum Linnane as Oscar, Sharni Spencer as Constance and Joseph Caley as Robbie Ross (photograph by Christopher Rodgers-Wilson)

Act I comprises three gatherings attended by Oscar and Constance. Friends dance with them, until Oscar upstages them for fun. In another scene, he is inspired to dance after watching a show with famous actresses – Sarah Bernhardt, Lilly Langtry, and Ellen Terry – all eccentrically dancing solos from Wilde’s plays, including Salome, the play that was banned in England but acclaimed in liberal France.

The crucial scene that undermines the family begins when Oscar introduces his friend Robbie Ross to Constance. The atmosphere changes twice as Robbie deliberately lures Oscar into intimate positions, then draws Constance into a trio before she tires and goes to bed. From here on, Robbie (his first homosexual lover) introduces Oscar to the molly world, various places where gays met.

Two famous drag queens who have done time in jail turn on a dazzling spinning dance around the stage. As night rolls on, a cluster of men remain and draw Oscar into a ménage of bodies, sliding and swaying together. Oscar spends more nights in town, Constance and the children suffer, and Queensberry resolves to separate Bosie from Oscar. 

After interval, the focus lies on Oscar’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the devilish tale of a narcissist who commissions a portrait that will preserve his beauty. But he is cruel and debauches himself and others. Time passes: Gray goes to see his portrait, only to find the figure of the damaged Oscar in the frame. Infuriated, he kills the painter, then rips into the canvas and dies on the spot.

Act II reveals how ravaged Oscar is, broken by hard labour and a poisoned ear he must endure until he dies. Angry too, he dances hard and fast to forget his horrors. A figure called Oscar’s Shadow has followed Oscar’s crisis as he takes great risks, as Bosie and Oscar become closer. The ballet ends as Robbie Ross arrives to take him from the prison. Wilde immediately leaves for France, never return to Britain.  

It is hard to distribute accolades here, but we must begin with the two Oscars – principal artist Callum Linnane (opening night) and first artist Jarryd Madden (the matinee on 14 September) – who more than danced this monumental role: they lived it. Two principal ballerinas, Ako Kondo (opening night) and Benedicte Bemet (14 September), delivered some of the finest and most emotionally compelling renditions in the tragic Nightingale story. Younger artists Adam Elmes and Maxim Zenin alternated as Dorian Gray and Oscar’s Shadow at each performance. They did so with strength and style, as did the whole company, which was well supported by Jonathan Lo and Orchestra Victoria.

Like all premières, Oscar has a few glitches: overly long dances that slow the dramatic impetus; blue lighting that spoils some costumes; and a superfluous narrative, delivered on stage, that is both distracting and swamped by the orchestra. All fixable, surely.

Oscar (The Australian Ballet) continues at the Regent Theatre in Melbourne until 24 September, and the Sydney Opera House from 8 to 23 November 2024. Performances attended: 13 and 14 September.