The Australian Ballet’s first visit to the Bay Area in 12 years this weekend will showcase Christopher Wheeldon’s “Oscar,” a work that Artistic Director David Hallberg feels shows the troupe’s uniqueness.
“It shows the company off at its best in the quality of dancing and performances but also says something about the kind of company we are, the work we are making and the kind of place Australia is,” Hallberg says. “We’re ambitious, open to fresh perspectives and new ideas, and not afraid to take risks. ‘Oscar’ embodies that; it’s a major new work created specifically for our dancers, telling the story of an extraordinary figure in a way that feels fresh and contemporary. It felt like the right work to bring back.”
“Oscar” is inspired by Oscar Wilde, the Irish author, poet and playwright who was one of the most popular dramatists in late 19th-century London.
The work’s North American premiere for The Australian Ballet comes to Cal Performances’ Zellerbach Hall Friday to Sunday. The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra is performing Joby Talbot’s commissioned score for the opus.
“Oscar” is a reunion for the ballet company and the symphony orchestra, which teamed for Graeme Murphy’s “Swan Lake” during the troupe’s last visit to Zellerbach Hall in 2014. Jonathan Lo, the ballet company’s music director and chief conductor, will conduct Talbot’s score, which Hallberg calls “rich and impressive.”
Hallberg says he’s been pleasantly surprised by the response to “Oscar” since its debut.
“There was a real sense of warmth and openness from audiences, the media and the Australian arts community around the decision to put a gay love story at the center of a major full-length ballet,” he says.
Wheeldon, who cites choreographers Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan among the most important influences on his career, began in 1997 while he was a dancer with the New York City Ballet. He since has created works for leading companies such as San Francisco Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet and Mariinsky Ballet and is a two-time winner of both an Olivier Award and a Tony Award.
Intrigued by Wilde’s story for a long time before creating “Oscar,” Wheeldon says he relied on multiple sources for working on the new opus, which notably includes extracts from Neil McKenna’s book “The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde.”
“I found it one of the most interesting books on Wilde, although it most definitely leaned more into his sexual preferences and proclivity for the darker side of Victorian London,” Wheeldon says of Wilde, who was convicted in an infamous 1895 trial for gross indecency and practicing homosexual acts.
Hallberg says Wheeldon isn’t simply telling Wilde’s biography in “Oscar.” The choreographer also draws from Wilde’s own stories, including “The Nightingale and the Rose” and “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” blending them with Wilde’s life to create something that is part biography, part imagination.
“That allows us to see both sides of Wilde — there is the wit, brilliance and theatricality he was known for, but also a much more vulnerable side,” Hallberg says. “His relationships, particularly with Lord Alfred Douglas and his wife Constance, are central to the story, and you really see how people around him shaped his life.”
Wheeldon agrees that the parallels made to Wilde’s life with two of his tales are memorable elements of “Oscar,” which features about 50 dancers of varied gender identities.
Hallberg says audiences in Australia have connected with the humanity of Wilde’s story, with its love, vulnerability and joy.
“The music, movement, design and characters all work together to draw you into his world,” Hallberg says. “There are moments of great beauty and spectacle, but they are always connected to the emotional story underneath, which I think is what makes the ballet so compelling. The dancers have also grown into the work with each performance, and that has brought even more depth to those relationships and to the story.”
Wheeldon hopes audiences will take away from “Oscar” a memorable impression about the not-so glamorous realities of artists.
“Great artists can be flawed humans — it is often these vulnerabilities and hard truths that give art its texture and brilliance,” he says. “Oscar suffered terrible cruel punishment, and we are left with his art to this day.”
Cal Performances presents Australian Ballet’s “Oscar” at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 25, 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26 and 3 p.m. Sept. 28 in Zellerbach Hall, University of California, Berkeley. Tickets are $55 to $215 at calperformances.org.