The Philadelphia Ballet presents Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow

Choreographer Ronald Hynd’s 1975 ballet is based on Franz Lehár’s operetta of the same name: the fabulously wealthy widow, Hanna Glawari, danced by Mayara Pineiro on opening night, has come to Paris, and the Pontevedrian embassy is in an uproar. If she finds a husband on her travels and moves her money, it will bankrupt their tiny (made up) country. So the ambassador (rehearsal director Charles Askegard) hatches a plot to marry her off to Danilo, his drunken but aristocratic secretary from back home.

A gala affair

As you would expect of a farce, things do not go according to plan. The ambassador’s wife, Valencienne (Yuka Iseda in a hilarious turn), is having an affair with Camille, the French attaché (Ashton Roxander, who matches her laugh for laugh). Their dance teeters from the sublime as she melts into his lyrical lifts to the outrageous as he gropes her chest, and just to be sure we know what they are up to, lays her out on the big pink rococo desk at center stage, with excited little beats of her feet. Russell Ducker in a huge curled mustache ups the hilarity, popping out from beneath the desk, and the giddy couple dash off.

The problem the ambassador knows about—the merry widow—is not going well either. Danilo, danced on opening night by Sterling Baca, reels drunkenly across the stage in a display of complex, off-kilter steps, with a champagne flute in one hand and a bottle in the other. He lands on the great desk too, and we can already see this not-so-carefully laid plan going awry.

The action quickly moves to a gala party to celebrate the widow’s visit, and we are swept from the ridiculous to the sublime. A backdrop furnishes the elegant ballroom, and a grand staircase, with bronze statues holding massive candelabra, awaits Hanna’s grand entrance. But first we have a glorious waltz by the company, the women in long, flowing, cream-colored gowns with deep bands of embroidery and the men in white tights with jewel-toned velvet jackets of green and dark blue, their fronts emblazoned with gold frogging (by costume and scenic designer Roberta Guidi di Bagno). The rhythm of the movement, the supple bend of a woman’s back in low, elegant lifts, carried us along, not really thinking about the details hidden by those sweeping skirts, but the spell would have been broken by one missed step.

Scandal and romance

Pineiro’s entrance at the top of that elegant staircase is breathtaking. Her flowing black gown glitters with silver in Nick Koln’s lighting, and her feathered black fan is a show stopper. When she is introduced to Danilo, their stillness is as riveting as the dancing. A mist-filled memory of their first, lost romance plays out in simpler costumes: he has kept her handkerchief as a token of a love he never forgot.

For Act 2, the party guests gather in the garden, the men in vaguely Mediterranean costumes and the women in rose colored calf-length romantic tutus, for a sequence of folk-inspired dances: polonaise, polka, csardas. They are fun, if a bit too long, providing an intermezzo before the plot thickens. Valencienne is almost discovered in the gazebo, but Hanna takes her place, claiming she is now engaged to the very French Camille.

Hearts (and many wine glasses) are broken! Schemes have come to naught! Which leads the entire cast to Maxim’s, the most famous, and most scandalous, restaurant in Paris, for Act 3. The men arrive in tailcoats and top hats and the ladies in elegant, colorful gowns. Cancan dancers flirt with the men, who try to sneak under their skirts, and in a bravura moment, men and Cancan dancers all drop to the floor in showy splits. But there is a story to resolve, so duels are threatened! All is revealed!

Believing the emotions

In a resolution only possible in a fantasy, the ambassador cedes the field to true love. Valencienne has her Camille, and Danilo realizes that Hanna has loved him all along. Every heart in the theater must have melted when she laid her head against his shoulder. Then the revelry fades away for one of the most beautiful waltzes in the repertoire. With lift after lift, Baca sweeps Pineiro across the stage, swaying with the rhythm of the gorgeous music.

It’s a beautiful ballet, full of beautiful dancing, but it rises or falls on the acting, and the principals all made us believe in the emotions, from reeling debauchery to passionate romance. This production features a rotating cast (see the full lineup here), and it’s worth a second look to see what the other dancers bring to the story.

Editor's note: Did you enjoy this review? Our BSR Readers Decide campaign is running through March 31, 2026 to fill a critical gap in our operational funding. There are no paywalls at BSR, but you can help keep our coverage going.

The Academy of Music is a wheelchair-accessible venue.