He wasn’t,of course. Two years after the attempted blackmail,Wilde would be convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years’ hard labour in prison.
The author’s wit and artistry,outsized personality and complicated legacy will take centre stage in the Australian Ballet’s 2024 season withOscar,a new,full-length ballet that will dramatise Wilde’s life and works through dance. The production will mark the company’s first performance at the Regent Theatre with a world premiere season in September before taking to the stage in Sydney in November.
Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon says the ballet will draw on Wilde’s poignant morality taleThe Nightingale and The Rose and gothic masterpieceThe Picture Of Dorian Gray as literary anchors,but its main focus will be the stuff of his life:“his champagne-like triumphs,descent into depravity and tragic end serving time in prison”.
The ballet will also give insight into Wilde as “an artist and as an eccentric”,saysDavid Hallberg,artistic director of the Australian Ballet.
Hallberg notes that Wilde’s life retains its relevance in an era when the cult of the artist is more pronounced than ever,yet at the same time,“true and honest self-expression can still be questioned,and scrutinised,and discriminated against”. Wilde,he says,“paid a horrible price for the life he knew he had to live”.
For Hallberg,there is a thrill in premiering a work – in his words,he is interested in building the repertoire for tomorrow. He believes in finding a balance between performing time-tested favourites and shepherding the ballet’s audience through a process of discovery.