Mikko Nissinen and the new Boston Ballet.

Mikko Nissinen brings international connections, impressive credentials, and a sunny personality to his new role as Boston Ballet's artistic director. Opposite: International Ballet Competition medalist Sarah Lamb, who joined Boston Ballet in 1999, in Jorma Elo's SHARP side of DARK.

The transformation of the Boston Ballet started at the top when Artistic Director Mikko Nissinen arrived to take command. His contract was retroactive to July 2002, but it wasn't disclosed until September, when sighs of relief greeted the public announcement that a leader had been found for the floundering company. However, as director of the Alberta Ballet in Canada, Nissinen still had promises to keep--a last season to finish there before he could take up his new position.

The Boston Ballet had functioned without permanent direction during the 2001-2002 season because Maina Gielgud had resigned the position of artistic director designate before taking on the full-time job, after former Director Anna-Marie Holmes had departed in 2001.

No doubt Nissinen, a soft-spoken, polite young man with an open, sunny manner, caught the attention of the search committee because of his international connections and impeccable credentials. The fact that he is also enormously personable and almost universally well liked, with a boyish persona that belies his considerable experience as well as his ambition, added to the attractive equation. At age 40, with an impressive performing career behind him, plus the expertise gained from directing a smaller company, he looked poised to take on a large challenge.

Nissinen had trained in his native Finland and then at the Vaganova Academy in Russia, followed by a twenty-year performing career that included the Finnish National, Dutch National, and Basel Ballet troupes and ten years as principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet under Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson. Proficient in four languages and skilled in both the classical and contemporary ballets of choreographers from Europe and America, Nissinen says, "I work in the global sense. I think that's a great help in today's dance world"--a prophetic remark given the choreographers he's announced for his first season: William Forsythe, Jorma Elo, John Cranko, Frederick Ashton, and Rudi van Dantzig, with only Mark Morris and George Balanchine to represent the American-made repertoire.

An administrative bonus was his two-year stint as artistic director of Marin Ballet, a school in San Rafael, California, before taking the same post at Alberta Ballet after he retired from his performing career. For one year at Alberta Nissinen held a dual position of interim executive director along with the artistic leadership. "I have a relatively good understanding of the business issues. Every artistic decision is really a business decision," he says.

Nissinen's administrative acumen will be enhanced by his close relationship with Valerie Wilder, who joined the Boston Ballet as executive director in September 2002, after six years in the same position at the National Ballet of Canada.

After his appointment was official, Nissinen says he went back to "day one" to study how the Boston Ballet evolved. "I looked at the perspective and kind of direction changes in the different eras. I looked at the repertory, what the local audiences had been exposed to," he says. He describes his inheritance as a company with "a certain versatility, definitely in the area of the classics."

The Boston Ballet, which describes itself as "one of the top five ballet companies in North America" was founded in 1963 by E. Virginia Williams and was the first professional repertory ballet company in New England. The succession of directors who followed--Violette Verdy, Bruce Wells for one season, Bruce Marks, and Anna-Marie Holmes-built the company to its present size of forty-one dancers augmented by the ten dancers of Boston Ballet II, who often perform with the main troupe. The Boston Ballet Center for Dance Education, directed by Rachel Moore, operates schools in three locations along with a large summer intensive and some innovative outreach programs. The annual budget for the entire organization runs "plus or minus $22 million," according to a company spokesperson.

Boston's repertoire over the past decade has included the major classics of the nineteenth century, a number of ballets by contemporary choreographers, and works commissioned from choreographers such as Mark Morris, Twyla Tharp, Christopher Wheeldon, and Daniel Pelzig, who was choreographer in residence under Marks. The annual production of The Nutcracker, instituted under Williams, with the legendary Arthur Fiedler as conductor, attracted 150,000 people in 2001.

The problems in the years leading to Nissinen's appointment left the company in turmoil, saddled with a major deficit and internal strife between the board of directors, administrators, and artistic staff. When the search to replace Holmes ended in the fiasco with Gielgud, which was compounded by the loss of several of the administrative staff (not to mention the economic slowdown that put all nonprofit fund-raising at risk), it looked as if the company was in perilous territory.

Led by board veteran John W. Humphrey, the board of trustees had to act quickly to keep the troupe in business. The trustees banded together in a fund-raising drive to bring down the deficit and formed a second search committee, which brought Nissinen to Boston.

With his first program, which opened the company's thirty-ninth Boston season in mid-September, Nissinen introduced himself to local audiences with a sharp jab to their sensibilities. They were used to viewing contemporary ballets in discrete doses, and one at a time. The mixed bill he chose was decidedly here, now, and on the edge, presenting a ballet apiece by Mark Morris (Maelstrom, which the company had danced before), William Forsythe (In the middle, somewhat elevated, a company premiere), and Jorma Elo (a world premiere, SHARP side of DARK). Moreover, the opening solo in Elo's ballet was danced by a member of Boston Ballet II, Andrea Schermoly, in line with Nissinen's policy that casting is open to everyone.

It was chancy on several levels to pack an evening with three abstract ballets, but most of the audience was cheering by the end of the evening. Other repertoire additions to come include Frederick Ashton's La Fille real gardee (February 20-March 2), a full evening of Balanchine works (March 27-April 6), and Rudi van Dantzig's Romeo and ]uliet (May 8-25) replacing Pelzig's version (which the company premiered in 1997) and a 1984 production choreographed by Choo San Goh.

"I think Rudi's ballet is a masterpiece, and it has not been done in America. I don't want to do what everyone else is doing," Nissinen says. "Every year will be slightly different. From this year's repertory will come long-term connections-more Ashton works in the future, and more Balanchine. I plan to introduce works by Balanchine in order to bring the next one, and the next," he says, conscious of the connection back to Williams, when Mr. B was company mentor and allowed use of his ballets free of royalty payments.

But Nissinen isn't spending his days only behind the desk in an office he has had no time to decorate. He teaches company class several times each week, alternating with the ballet mistress and ballet masters he's hired (creating a total turnover in the studio staff): Eva Evdokimova, a celebrated ballerina who danced with American Ballet Theatre and the Royal Danish Ballet, among others; Raymond Lukens, who has also been appointed director of Boston Ballet II; and Anthony Randazzo, who was a principal dancer with Nissinen when they were both at the San Francisco Ballet. Trinidad Vives, formerly associate artistic director at the Houston Ballet, has been named Boston's artistic associate, a new position. Vives, who has taught for Boston in previous years, also danced with the Basel Ballet; Lukens was guest teacher for the Alberta Ballet. Evdokimova appeared with the Boston Ballet in 1983 as partner to Rudolf Nureyev in Don Quixote on Broadway.

"I've been brought here because of my diverse schooling," Evdokimova said. "What made me want to come to Boston was the sense of a new beginning, to be in at the start of it."

Watching Nissinen teach company class, the visitor is struck by the observation that the 40-year-old director looks barely older than some of the dancers. He warms up as he practices the combinations he will give them, taking off from the floor to demonstrate the ecstatic leaps that end the class.

Sprinkled among the familiar faces that include principal dancers April Ball, Simon Ball, Jennifer Gelfand, Larissa Ponomarenko, Viktor Plotnikov, Pollyana Ribeiro, Adriana Suarez, Paul Thrussell, and Yuri Yanowsky are newcomers who came with Nissinen from Alberta or whom he has hired from other companies. Hungarian-born Szabolcs Varga, brought from Alberta, is a standout in the men's big jumps. Soloist Alexander Ritter comes to Boston from New York City Ballet. Unfortunately, the one new pick for principal dancer, Roman Rykine, formerly with San Francisco Ballet, was sidelined by an injury before the company reported back for work. Also among the returning dancers were Sarah Lamb, who was awarded a silver medal at the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi, in June 2002, and principal Gael Lambiotte, who delivered a scorching performance as Prince Albrecht in last season's production of Giselle.

"I didn't make many changes. I think I didn't renew contracts for four people; but somebody retired, some left for other companies. That created a little more room for me to bring more dancers. The importance of the dancers I brought in is to give a little different element to the whole pool. It's like cooking a soup. You add one new ingredient and it changes the chemistry," Nissinen says.

According to Wilder, "the aspirations to do wonderful things are present throughout the organization. Mikko and I know what it takes, but can we do it overnight? No, but if you don't dream you're not going to get there at all."

Nissinen adds, "My intention for the company is to stay long-term. Now we have the team in place. The big plan is to get the company up in flight, to get the community excited."

Eager to please but just as eager to put his own mark on the company, Nissinen invites the visitor to "come whenever you want. We have no secrets here."

Longtime DANCE MAGAZINE contributor Iris Fanger writes about theater and dance for many publications, including the Boston Phoenix and the Christian Science Monitor.