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The Hamburg Ballet\u2019s last director, John Neumeier, led the company<\/a> for 51 years, transforming it from a provincial troupe into an internationally respected house.<\/p>\n His successor, Demis Volpi, lasted just 10 months.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Hamburg State Opera said in a news release<\/a> that its board and Volpi had agreed to terminate his contract at the ballet four years early. The announcement followed weeks of crisis at the company after it emerged that five principal dancers had resigned, and that more than half of the company\u2019s dancers had sent a letter to a local lawmaker to complain of a \u201ctoxic working environment\u201d under Volpi.<\/p>\n In Tuesday\u2019s release, Volpi said that \u201cdespite intensive efforts,\u201d he could no longer realize his artistic vision and had agreed to depart \u201cin the interests of all involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Volpi, an Argentine choreographer who previously led the Ballet am Rhein<\/a> in D\u00fcsseldorf, did not respond to a request for an interview, and a spokeswoman for Hamburg Ballet said it would not comment further.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It was not immediately clear what Volpi\u2019s departure would mean for the company\u2019s coming season, which Volpi had announced in March and is to include the premiere of Alexei Ratmansky\u2019s \u201cWonderland,\u201d<\/a> based on Lewis Carroll\u2019s novels. Nor is it clear how the company will handle productions of Volpi\u2019s work. A new version of Volpi\u2019s \u201cSurrogate Cities<\/a>\u201d is scheduled to premiere in July. And Volpi\u2019s \u201cDemian<\/a>,\u201d based on the novel by Hermann Hesse, is scheduled to be performed in December<\/a>.<\/p>\n The crisis at Hamburg Ballet began in early May when German newspapers widely reported dancers\u2019 complaints about its artistic direction under Volpi, as well as accusations that he was insufficiently present during rehearsals.<\/p>\n Alexandr Trusch, one of the dancers who resigned, said in an interview with the broadcaster NDR<\/a> that everything that Neumeier had achieved at the company risked \u201cbeing thrown out of the window.\u201d<\/p>\n