Ronald Hynd was born in London, England in 1931. He trained at the Rambert School, becoming a principal dancer in Ballet Rambert before joining The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden in 1954 where he rose through the ranks to principal.
As a dancer, Mr Hynd danced all the leading roles in the classical repertoire, most often with the British ballerina Annette Page, to whom he was married for sixty years until her death in 2017.
On retiring from dancing, Ronald Hynd’s choreographic career began and his most famous ballet The Merry Widow has been performed by 21 of the world’s most prestigious companies in great opera houses across the globe. Created for the Australian Ballet in 1975, it has been performed in the Americas by American Ballet Theatre at The Metropolitan Opera House; Houston Ballet; Pacific Northwest; Joffrey Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, Ballet de Santiago, Chile, Ballet Sodre in Montevideo and Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. In Europe, The Merry Widow has been performed at Teatro alla Scala, Milan; The Royal Danish Ballet; Vienna State Ballet and Hungarian State Ballet.
Mr Hynd was Ballet Director at the Bavarian State Opera House in Munich from 1970-73 and again from 1984 – 1986 and also has a very long and close relationship with English National Ballet. Productions created there include The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and Coppelia.
Other full-length works include Rosalinda presented by Deutsche Oper, Berlin and English National Ballet and Papillon; Hunchback of Notre Dame; Ludwig II and Le Diable a Quatre.
One-act ballets include The Seasons; Les Valses; Wendekreise; Liaisons Amoureuses; The Sanguine Fan; Fanfare; In a Summer Garden and Pasiphae.
In 2020 Mr Hynd was presented with The Royal Ballet Governors’ Award for services to British Ballet and in 2022 won the Dance Critics’ Award for lifetime achievement. In 1991 he devised and choreographed a special production of Sylvia for ‘Serenade to a Princess’ to celebrate the 30th birthday of Diana, Princess of Wales.