The Miami City Ballet board will decide next Tuesday whether former NYCB dancer Lourdes Lopez, 54, or current MCB dancer Jennifer Kronenberg, 35, will replace the retiring Edward Villella, who is being forced out by the board of directors, according to the Miami Herald in a just released article. According to the paper, the wealthy board members favor Lopez while the dancers and Villella favor Kronenberg.
Miami City Ballet is so much more than a Balanchine company. While Lopez would certainly be valuable in the maintenance of the Balanchine rep, she would be like a fish out of water when it came to preserving classical rep like Giselle and Coppelia, the Tharp rep, and the Ratmansky rep. Totally out of water. Ms. Kronenberg, on the other hand, has been captaining much of the rep for a long time.
The choice of Kronenberg, who is nearing retirement age, seems to make more sense if there is any interest on the part of the board in maintaining what has been built in the past 27 years. A quick selection of Kronenberg and a year or so of amicable transitioning under Villella would be the least hurtful path to take in this nasty matter.
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