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San Francisco Ballet has a vibrant new artistic director: the celebrated Spanish dancer Tamara Rojo<\/a>. And the company has had a relatively strong recovery from the pandemic, with ticket sales recently approaching pre-Covid levels.<\/p>\n Now San Francisco Ballet has received a groundbreaking gift: It announced on Thursday that it had secured a $60 million contribution from an anonymous donor, the largest in the company\u2019s 91-year history and one of the biggest ever to an American dance company.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was, for me, an enormous surprise,\u201d Rojo, who joined the company in 2022, said in an interview. \u201cThe impact is immeasurable.\u201d<\/p>\n The vast majority of the gift, $50 million, will be used to bolster the company\u2019s endowment, currently valued at about $108 million, and to help finance the creation and acquisition of new works. The remaining $10 million will be used to help cover operating costs in Rojo\u2019s first few seasons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Rojo said the donation would allow the company to achieve its aim of creating modern classics.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a gift of new creativity \u2014 a gift of the lifeblood of what a ballet company is and has always been,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n San Francisco Ballet, with a budget of about $55 million, hopes the gift will help the company move beyond a series of challenges. The pandemic brought financial strains \u2014 ticket sales fell to about $18 million in the fiscal year that ended in June 2022, down from about $22 million in the year that ended in June 2019. Sales have recovered more recently, reaching about $21 million in the fiscal year that ended in June.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And subscriptions, which have traditionally been an important source of revenue, are still below prepandemic levels, as they are for many cultural organizations. The company has sold 6,118 so far this year, down from 7,784 in 2019. While favorites like \u201cThe Nutcracker\u201d continue to draw crowds, and story ballets have been popular, some mixed-repertory programs have struggled to surpass 50 percent attendance. (The company performs at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco, which has more than 3,100 seats.)<\/p>\n The troupe has also been grappling with leadership churn. Last year, San Francisco Ballet\u2019s executive director, Danielle St.Germain, stepped down after only a year in the position. She was replaced by Arturo Jacobus, who is serving on an interim basis. The company hopes to name a permanent leader by the fall.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Alison Mauz\u00e9, chair of San Francisco Ballet\u2019s board, said in an interview that the gift, which came together over the last two months, would be transformational for the company. Still, she said it would not \u201cfully protect the company from the challenges of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt remains critical that we expand our audience and ensure that the meaning and importance of ballet become clear to the next generation,\u201d Mauz\u00e9 said. \u201cTamara Rojo\u2019s leadership and vision are brilliant, but this will also require increasingly strong support from our community and serious investment across the operations of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n San Francisco Ballet hopes it can experience a revival under Rojo, who previously served as the artistic director of the English National Ballet, helping to raise that company\u2019s international profile. (She was a principal for English National Ballet and before that a star at the Royal Ballet.) Rojo said she wanted to commission more works that connect to social issues and to \u201ccontinue to enrich the art form and to continue to make it an alive art form.\u201d<\/p>\n This season is the first she has programmed. Its opener, \u201cMere Mortals,\u201d a meditation on artificial intelligence, was a collaboration between the choreographer Aszure Barton and the electronic music producer Floating Points. The work, a world premiere, garnered critical acclaim and nearly sold out, drawing a large number of new audience members. Encore performances<\/a> are planned for April.<\/p>\n Rojo said the gift was an investment in her goals.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt an enormous wave of gratitude that there would be so much trust already in my vision and my ambitions that I have on behalf of San Francisco Ballet,\u201d she said. \u201cFor me personally it\u2019s a huge encouragement that I am going in the right direction, that my vision is the right vision.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n