DANCE REVIEW : National Ballet of Canada Performs ‘Merry Widow’

At the very least, any “Merry Widow” ballet ought to sweep us away in 3/4 time. Waltz-rhythm forms the heartbeat of the original Lehar operetta score, and audiences who can’t remember a single incident in the convoluted plot can hum its most famous waltz or recall the surge of couples through a chandeliered ballroom.

Alas, the ballroom in Ronald Hynd’s “Merry Widow” ballet is so crammed with staircases and furniture that there’s no room on the stage of the Orange County Performing Arts Center for any sustained surge. Worse, Hynd’s sense of waltz-rhythm proves so feeble that even some of the leading dancers in National Ballet of Canada can’t bring his choreography alive.

Originally created for the Australian Ballet in 1975, Hynd’s three-act “Widow” opened Thursday as part of the Canadians’ six-day engagement in Segerstrom Hall. The late Sir Robert Helpmann adapted the scenario, John Lanchbery the score, contrasting florid, neo-Massine character-comedy with lyric interludes for the Widow and her amorous Count.

In place of the natural rise and fall of the waltz, Hynd inserts lifts, with the women kicking their feet or waving their arms or throwing back their heads while aloft. Lifts also dominate the more conventionally balletic adagio passages and their overuse not only devalues them as choreographic exclamation-points but forces Hynd into ever-more-bizarre variations.

When attempting character-comedy, Hynd keeps everybody in constant motion, but only briefly does all the generalized activity coalesce into focused dancing. In addition, nobody is allowed to dance without carrying a prop or two--papers, boxes, bottles, glasses, fans, scarves and the like. You half expect company Property Master Neil Fennell to receive co-choreography credit.

When Hynd tries to combine his passion for paraphernalia and his preoccupation with lifts, “The Merry Widow” sinks into hopeless self-parody. For example, in their final reconciliation duet, the Count must pick up champagne glasses, then hoist the Widow up onto his back, give her time for a sip and then swing her back down to the floor for a final toast.

Even with the radiant Karen Kain and the magnetic Rex Harrington, the action doesn’t look remotely like dancing or drinking or romance. It looks like a new event on “American Gladiators.”

At 40, Kain remains an artist of great intelligence and refinement, but this role requires her to spend too much time striking triumphant poses when she’s done nothing to be triumphant about. Spinning in Harrington’s arms for a moment at the end of Act I, she’s suddenly released as an artist--just as Harrington in the last act briefly explodes into dancing of dazzling force and scale. Just a few seconds in each case before a return to a stylish pretense of far less authenticity and power.

Although she must endure the most grotesque lifts in the ballet, Margaret Illmann offers so much charm and silken technique as Valencienne that only Kain’s star power keeps her from stealing the ballet. As Camille, Raymond Smith partners her adroitly but looked far more ardent in the 1987 TV production opposite Yoko Ichino.

Instead of using corps dancers in character parts, National Ballet of Canada fields a roster of mature specialists who polish each cameo-role to a high gloss. With Hazaros Surmeyan deliriously crusty as the cuckolded Baron, fine support comes from Victoria Bertram (the pushy customer at Maxim’s) and Jacques Gorrissen (the nosy private secretary). With more pure-dance opportunities than either Harrington or Smith, divertissement lead Pierre Quinn shines in an otherwise rather clotted pseudo-folk sequence.

Desmond Heeley’s designs exude Art Nouveau opulence but never allow adequate space for the corps--on a stage that easily accommodated the scenic and choreographic spectacle of “Vienna Waltzes.”

In compensation, Ormsby Wilkins and the company orchestra keep Lehar ideally fresh, sensual and propulsive. There are plenty of waltzes to hear in this “Merry Widow,” and maybe some memorable ones to see, if you close your eyes.