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the ballet

The Merry Widow ballet is a 1975 adaptation of Franz Lehár's 1905 romantic operetta The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe). John Lanchbery and Alan Abbott adapted the score of the operetta for ballet and retained the style of Lehár's orchestration. The arrangement includes the well known tunes of the operetta: Vilja's song Ich bin eine anständige Frau and the Weibermarsch. This musical arrangement has been used for two ballets: the first was choreographed by Ronald Hynd for The Australian Ballet in 1975, while the second was choreographed by Veronica Paeper for CAPAB (since renamed the Cape Town City Ballet Company) in 1988.

The ballet was created for The Australian Ballet by Sir Robert Helpmann (a principal dancer and choreographer), who obtained permission from the heirs of the composer and the librettists (Viktor Léon and Leo Stein), by special arrangement with Glocken Verlag Ltd. of London. The scenario and staging were designed by Helpmann, with the choreography by Ronald Hynd. The orchestration was by John Lanchbery (who was then the musical director of The Australian Ballet) and his colleague Alan Abbott. The designer was Desmond Heeley. The ballet had its world premiere on 13 November 1975 at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne, with Marilyn Rowe (Hanna), John Meehan (Danilo), Lucette Aldous (Valencienne), Kelvin Coe (Camille), Colin Peasley (Baron Mirko Zeta) and Ray Powell (Njegus). The performance was conducted by John Lanchbery. It premiered in Sydney at the Regent Theatre. In 1976, Dame Margot Fonteyn performed the rôle of Hanna as a guest dancer at The Australian Ballet and continued with the rôle, alternating with Marilyn Fay Jones when the company took their production to England. Like the operetta, the ballet has also become very popular and has been adopted into the repertoires of many companies, including the National Ballet of Canada, the Royal Danish Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre, the Houston Ballet, the Vienna State Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Veronica Paeper choreographed a new version of this ballet to the orchestration of John Lanchbery. The ballet had its premiere on 10 September 1988 at the Artscape Theatre Centre, formerly known as the Nico Malan Opera House, in Cape Town, South Africa. The Cape Town City Ballet revived this version in 2008; the principal rôles were danced by guest artists Elza Leimane and Raimond Martinov.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC TV) recorded a live performance by the Australian Ballet, at Melbourne's State Theatre, on 25 June 1993, with Lisa Pavane (as Hanna Galwari), Steven Heathcote (Count Danilo Danilovitsch), Rebecca Yates (Valencienne), David McAllister (Camille de Rosillon), Colin Peasley (Baron Mirko Zeta), and Ray Powell (Njegus). The ABC broadcast the recording on 27 March 1997, and released it as a video and DVD.