Video: How Christopher Wheeldon Stepped Into the Wild World of Oscar Wilde

Christopher Wheeldon is bringing the life, loves and imagination of Oscar Wilde to the stage this week as Oscar makes its New York premiere at New York City Center.

Created for The Australian Ballet and featuring a score by longtime Wheeldon collaborator Joby Talbot, the full-length ballet grew out of conversations between Wheeldon and Australian Ballet Artistic Director David Hallberg about what a new classical ballet could look like today. Their discussions eventually turned to the scarcity of queer love stories at the center of the classical ballet canon.

“Why don’t we create a new classical ballet that centers around a queer story?” Wheeldon recalled. “There have been other choreographers that have certainly had queer themes in their work, but there’s never really been a ballet that has centered specifically on a queer love story.”

Wheeldon, who has been fascinated by Wilde since his teenage years, found a way to blend the writer's biography with elements of his work, including The Nightingale and the Rose and The Picture of Dorian Gray. The resulting ballet charts both the extraordinary heights of Wilde's celebrity and the devastating final years of his life.

“The first act is kind of the rise, the wit, the sparkle, the champagne, the beauty,” Wheeldon explained. “And act two is Oscar’s experience in prison and how the memories of his work, of his relationships... Act Two is almost a fever dream of Oscar’s writing.”

For Wheeldon, bringing Oscar to City Center is also something of a homecoming. The venue has played an important role throughout his career, and he sees the new ballet as occupying a space between the theatrical and dance worlds—something he hopes can invite audiences from both sides to cross over.

Oscar plays New York City Center October 8–11, with Talbot's score performed live by the 48-piece Orchestra of St. Luke's. Watch Wheeldon discuss the making of the ballet, his longtime collaboration with Talbot, and more in the full interview.