Review: The Merry Widow improves with age

Ronald Hynd's 1975 piece The Merry Widow is narrative ballet at its best. The Franz Lehar score, complemented by John Lanchester and Desmond Heeley's lavish Belle Époque designs, help make the show as effervescent and refreshing as the champagne which the cast are constantly drinking.

Based on the operetta of the same name, the plot is a frothy farce about the efforts of Baron Zeta, the elderly Pontevedrian ambassador in Paris, to save his country from financial ruin by marrying wealthy widow Hanna to the dashing, if drunk, Count Danilo. However, the baron does not know that the two were in love in their youth but were parted by Danilo's family. Nor, for that matter, does Zeta realise that his young wife Valencienne and French attaché Camille are having an affair. This leads to much comedy and a few tears before the inevitable happy ending.

The first run of The Merry Widow in 2007, one of the Hong Kong Ballet's finest feats, was staged by choreographer Hynd himself and John Meehan, then the company's artistic director, who created the role of Danilo. Meehan couldn't return this year due to an accident.