Oscar - New York City Center ★★★★★

The Australian Ballet hasn’t visited the United States since 2019, and now the company has returned with a vengeance in New York City Center’s presentation of Oscar. This new ballet by Christopher Wheeldon brilliantly intertwines Oscar Wilde’s life with two of his great works, The Nightingale and the Rose and The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the amalgamation is nothing short of glorious.

Wheeldon, once a soloist with the New York City Ballet before becoming its first resident choreographer, has always had a flair for the theatrical. His successful leap to Broadway with An American in Paris, which melded ballet with the razzmatazz of The Great White Way, was no surprise.

But that show was based on a much-beloved film. Oscar is a different animal, an original work cleverly conceived to weave together the tragedy of a brilliant writer’s life with his own creations.

The first act finds Wilde reflecting on happier times in his life from a prison cell, after he’s been sentenced to two years of hard labor for “gross indecency”. As Wilde recalls reading his story The Nightingale and the Rose to his wife and two sons, the tale comes to life, and from that point forward Wilde’s biography mixes with his fiction in beautiful, unexpected fashion. Multiple stories swirl on and off the stage: the nightingale’s determination to find a red rose for a lovestruck student; Wilde’s happy marriage to Constance; and eventually the arrival of Robbie Ross, the debonair man befriended by Oscar and Constance before becoming Wilde’s lover and introducing him to a world he’d never known.

The contrast between Oscar’s dances with Constance and with Robbie is striking. With Constance, all is bouncy and bright, and sweetly prim. With Robbie, a sensual, far more physical pas de deux fills the stage. All the passion Oscar has been holding in is released, and with it, a new freedom.

The second act of the ballet is more intense, less joyful. Time has passed, and Oscar has been emotionally and physically broken. He obsesses over his younger lover, Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, and the pain that relationship has caused him. (Bosie’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, is responsible for Oscar’s prison sentence.) Everything, including the choreography, is darker and harsher. The same is true of Dorian Gray, the protagonist of Wilde’s novel, whose story now comes to life. His hidden portrait reveals the corruption beneath his beautiful exterior, mirroring Wilde’s own deterioration.

Wheeldon’s exhilarating vision is brought to vivid life by his collaborators, especially composer Joby Talbot, whose jubilant, sweeping score drives dance and story from start to finish. The designers also have risen to the occasion: video designer David Bergman, lighting designer Jon Goldman, and especially stage and costume designer Jean-Marc Puissant make significant contributions to this breathtaking ballet. The dancers, from the corps de ballet to the soloists, impress not only with their technique but also their expressive power, with special plaudits for Benedicte Bemet’s lovely Constance, Jill Ogai’s moving Nightingale, and, of course, Jarryd Madden’s heartbreaking Oscar.