After two seasons of severe belt-tightening, Miami City Ballet is returning in force this weekend for the beginning of its 25th anniversary season.

Signs of renewed optimism include:

• Four company premieres: Jerome Robbins’ Fanfare, Twyla Tharp’s Baker’s Dozen, Paul Taylor’s Promethean Fire and John Cranko’s full-evening Romeo and Juliet.
• The return of a 42- to 56-piece orchestra, absent since live accompaniment was cut in mid-season 2008-09.
• The restoration of seven of the 10 dancer jobs shed during the 2009-10 season, bringing the number of dancers to 50.

All this comes with a jump in the annual operating budget from last season’s $11.4 million to $15 million in 2010-11. That’s a bold increase for a company with a history of living beyond its means that was forced to make draconian cuts when the recession hit.

“It is an ambitious number, and it raises eyebrows,” general manager Mark Cole said. “The story of how we got here is through board leadership. We have new donors with deep pockets.”

Company leaders determined that the investments were necessary to drive ticket sales and donations, he said. And much of the company’s repertory requires at least 40 dancers.

The Miami Beach based company, which performs at the Kravis Center, ended the 2009-10 financial year in April with a $177,000 surplus. The ballet has been strengthening its board, stepping up development activities and exerting greater financial discipline, said Trish Walker, one of the city of Miami Beach’s representatives on the board.

Each of season’s premieres is underwritten. The next three seasons of orchestral accompaniment are being financed by a $900,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which required the ballet to raise an equal match.

“Miami City Ballet is one of the greatest ballet companies in the country, not a good regional ballet,” said Dennis Scholl, the Knight Foundation’s Miami program director and vice president for arts.

The coming season will see a renewed focus on strengthening support in Palm Beach, company leaders said. Although the Kravis Center is the company’s strongest venue for ticket sales, Palm Beach County donations lag behind those of Miami-Dade County.

Emboldened in part by reduced competition after the demise of Ballet Florida, the company will resume dancing its Nutcracker at the Kravis in December.

The additions to the repertory demonstrate the company’s range and mastery of different styles, said Edward Villella, artistic director and chief executive officer. All are acknowledged masterworks by great choreographers, he said.

At $1.5 million, Romeo and Juliet is the most expensive ballet the company has ever mounted, Cole said. The work surpasses other versions of the romance because of its deft storytelling and use of young, sexy dancers, he said.

Villella admits that the $15 million operating budget makes him a little nervous, but that’s not unusual, he said. Programs typically are set a year and a half in advance without the benefit of foreknowledge of the economy’s whims. “You have to be comfortably ready for everything,” he said.

Miami City Ballet

Today at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., Sunday at 1 p.m., Kravis Center, West Palm Beach.

Program: Fanfare (Robbins/Britten); Bugaku (Balanchine/Mayazumi); Theme and Variations (Balanchine/Tchaikovsky).

Call Miami City Ballet at (305) 929-7010 or (877) 929-7010 or visit www.miamicity

ballet.org. Tickets are also available through the Kravis Center at (561) 832-7469.