Edward Villella’s ‘forced’ retirement from Miami City Ballet leaves donors and dancers distressed

He was forced to retire, and the real ques­tion is why. It’s enra­ging, and it’s wrong. He doesn’t want to retire, he’s at the top of his game.”

said Fran­cinelee Hand, a Vil­lella sup­porter and MCB board mem­ber since 1994.

The com­pany is truly enjoy­ing a golden moment with its sold-out, crit­ic­ally acclaimed sea­son in Paris last sum­mer, and the admired PBS broad­cast at the end of last year.

Treas­urer Ron Esser­man, though, con­fided that some of his col­leagues cared more about Villella’s tend­ency to ali­en­ate major donors than his artistic achievements,

Keep­ing donors happy is not [Villella’s] strong point. We’ve lost some big donors. Some of the big donors [on the board] want him to go. The donors want spe­cial atten­tion and to have someone pat them on the back. Edward isn’t always cap­able of that.”

Although the com­pany suf­fers from fin­an­cial dif­fi­culties, like most bal­let organ­iz­a­tions, it has earned out­size acclaim des­pite a much smal­ler budget than that of the New York City Bal­let or San Fran­cisco Bal­let. About half its income comes from ticket sales and other earned income, and the rest from donations.

The situ­ation has upset one pair of major donors, Harry and Har­riet Pown­all, so much that they have with­held $125,000 of a $500,000 dona­tion to spon­sor Sym­phonic Dances, a new work by Alexei Rat­mansky that will première on March 1.

We hope other donors will see what’s hap­pen­ing and see that it’s det­ri­mental to the bal­let for Eddie to leave. This is someone who’s built some­thing incred­ible, and then you throw him under a bus?”

Now the couple says they would not have pledged that money if they had known Vil­lella was leaving.

We felt betrayed. [Board mem­bers] said to me, ‘If Edward doesn’t leave we won’t get dona­tions.’ And I said, ‘I can’t ima­gine that. If Eddie leaves you’re not going to get donations.’”

When Villella’s retire­ment was announced in Septem­ber, com­pany offi­cials gave his age, 75, and the need to have a new leader in place to assure fun­ders con­cerned about the company’s long-term viability.

Joan Aco­cella, dance critic for the New Yorker, said,

If what the board wants is new blood I don’t know what new blood they think they can get. [Vil­lella has imbued MCB] with extraordin­ary verve and com­mit­ment and charm. … Nobody else equals that with the Bal­anchine rep­er­tory, and very few com­pan­ies out­side New York rival them in any way.”

The com­pany dan­cers said,

The last thing I want is for Edward’s vis­ion to be com­prom­ised and his fam­ily and baby to be broken up. It would break his and every one of the dan­cers’ hearts.”