The Australian Ballet’s ‘Oscar,’ Ventures Into New Romantic Territory

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.”