PFC Live Performance Series: Tickets, $10 Member/$12 Non-Member

Peter Stampfel and the Ether Frolic Mob, features a variety of New York musicians, including John Cohen of the New Lost City Ramblers, Hubby Jenkins of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, Peter's daughter Zoe Stapmfel and all 3 of The Dust Busters. They play a mix of traditional folk American music and popular songs from the last 200 years. The band has an anything goes and everything's possible approach which takes the audience out of this world, whether playing a song written last year or last century . Stampfel is one of the most present and out-of-this-world performers around, a folk legend and the weird uncle of Freak-Folk. In the 60's and 70's Peter toured the world with The Holy Modal Rounders and The Fugs. His song 'If I was a Bird' was featured prominently in the Easy Rider soundtrack and more recently he has released albums with Baby Gramps, Jeffrey Lewis, his daughter Zoe and the Ether Frolic Mob, separately. The Ether Frolic Mob CD is due to be released later this spring on Red Newt Records. On this tour the Mob will feature the Dust Busters, J. Lewis and for some shows Kristin Andreassen (Uncle Earl, Sometimes Why).

“Bodice-ripping melodrama, cloistered nuns, brilliant farce, and three hours of gorgeous music that allows big voices to let emotion rip…I can’t recommend this new Royal Opera production (the first for nearly half a century) too highly.” - Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph

Puccini’s Il Trittico, a gem-box collection of three brief operas, runs the gamut from heart-wrenching drama to madcap farce. The tragic Il Tabarro and Suor Angelica are followed by the charming Gianni Schicchi, best known for its resplendent soprano aria, “O mio babbino caro.” Lucio Gallo, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Anja Harteros, Anna Larsson and Ekaterina Siurina are featured throughout this very special evening from the Royal Opera House.

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In the Bolshoi Ballet’s new staging of Le Corsaire, Petipa’s original choreography is revived and refreshed by Alexei Ratmansky and Yuri Burlaka to breathe new life into this production. The ballet follows Medora, a young Greek girl, and Conrad, a dashing pirate, as they journey through a tapestry of dramatic events, culminating in a shipwreck considered to be one of ballet’s most dazzling spectacles.

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From the mid-19th century onwards — against the background of industrialization, the supremacy of bourgeois values, and an intellectual climate dominated by secular materialistic and scientific positivism — art became realistic, seeking to show things as they really were — almost photographically —, rather than making them more amiable or more beautiful. An opera such as La Bohème, which talks of the fragile nature of happiness in a world of poverty, cold and disease, is an obvious example of this trend.
In La Bohème, however, the aesthetic of Verism — the Italian equivalent of the French Naturalism of Émile Zola — becomes more sentimental and the brutality of social reality is depicted less crudely than elsewhere. Four young artists live out their everyday lives amid dreams and disappointments, waiting for the event that is to win them renown, but poverty and misfortune deprive the leading characters — Mimì and Rodolfo — of the joy of mutual love. The text and music relate all this with a pleasant melodramatic tenderness with which it is easy to identify.

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Romeo and Juliet was Kenneth MacMillan’s first full-evening ballet, and, from its premiere in 1965, has been one of The Royal Ballet’s signature works, popular all over the world. At the beginning of the ballet MacMillan’s crowd scenes teem with life and colour. It’s a pleasure to be able to follow the characters created by members of the corps de ballet as they portray the townspeople, market traders and servants of the rival Montagues and Capulets. However, once Romeo and Juliet meet, everything else on stage can only be scenery for their story. Three great pas de deux: the meeting in the ballroom, the balcony scene and the morning after the wedding, eloquently convey the narrative: adolescent shyness and fascination; the headlong rush of love declared, and the grief of parting. The final scene in the tomb, a pas de deux with a lifeless partner, is devastating. The Royal Ballet has performed Romeo and Juliet well over 400 times, yet each performance is subtly different. Every pairing in the title roles brings fresh nuances to the young lovers’ characters, while the wealth of supporting roles, from the exuberant trio of harlots in the town square to the murderous rage of Tybalt, offers scope for dancers throughout the Company. Nicholas Georgiadis’s earthy Renaissance designs, with some of the original details recently restored, are the perfect backdrop.

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A classic of opera, Verdi‘s famous score is loved for its melody and its drama. David McVicar‘s immensely popular production, in period costume, brings the 15th-century court of Mantua alive: its womanizing Duke, the court jester Rigoletto bent on revenge and his daughter, Gilda, who the Duke loves but still destroys. A celebrated score of familiar music conducted by John Eliot Gardiner, and a drama of the passions of love and hate.

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"The Bright Stream is the best new ballet I’ve seen in years. It is a perfect blend of witty, innovative choreography, sprightly music and superb performances. It deserves to stay in American Ballet Theatre’s repertoire for a long time." Colleen Boresta, Ballet-Dance Magazine

The Bright Stream originally opened in Leningrad in 1935 to great acclaim, and then transferred to the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow. The ballet was a big hit in both cities, but Stalin and the official Soviet newspaper, Pravda, did not approve of it. Stalin felt that The Bright Stream was not a faithful portrayal of the life of the Soviet peasants. Would Stalin really have preferred a ballet showing the millions of peasants who died due to his policy of collectivization as opposed to a comic work which just happened to be set on a collective? One of the ballet’s librettists, Adrian Piotrovsky was sent to the gulag, never to be heard from again. The career of the choreographer and co-librettist, Fyodor Lopukhov, was ended and all performances by the composer, Dmiti Shostakovich, were terminated. Read more...

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“Fille is a treasure,” says Monica Mason, Director of The Royal Ballet. Anyone who has seen this sunniest of ballets will certainly agree. With its origins in a work first seen in Bordeaux in 1789, La Fille mal gardée had been staged by several choreographers in the 19th century. Frederick Ashton brought the work into the 20th century and created an instant classic which has never left The Royal Ballet’s repertory. The simple story of Lise, her suitor Colas and Lise’s larger-than-life mother, the Widow Simone, who tries to marry her off to the simpleton son of a rich neighbor, is full of delicious comedy but also wonderful, characterful choreography. One of the greatest pleasures of Fille is the way in which the steps, though at times devilishly difficult, never get in the way of the natural, easy storytelling. The virtuoso roles of Lise and Colas combine dazzling technique with tiny, intimate details that makes their romance touching and real, while the humor of Widow Simone and the innocent Alain, more interested in his red umbrella than Lise’s charms, is delightful. Funny and touching, La Fille mal gardée is the perfect ballet for first-timers of all ages, but it is also one to which ballet-lovers will return again and again with renewed pleasure at every performance.

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Act I: Raymonda, who is betrothed to Jean de Brienne, is celebrating her birthday. Jean, who is expected to arrive the next day, has send some presents in advance. One of these presents is an embroidered portrait of himself. First, however, Abderman arrives and tries to court Raymonda. Raymonda then dreams that Jean comes down from his portrait to dance with her, however, when she wakes up she finds that Abderman is there again to "renew his amorous proposals." Act II: The festivities continue, and Abderman asks Raymonda to dance. Then, he and his accomplices attempt to abduct her. However, at that moment Jean arrives with his brother, the King of Hungary. There is a duel and Abderman is killed. Act III: There is a feast at the castle to celebrate the marriage of the two lovers, and much dancing.

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First staged in St Petersburg in 1890, The Sleeping Beauty is the pinnacle of classical ballet: a perfect marriage of Petipa’s choreography and Tchaikovsky’s music and a glorious challenge for every dancer onstage. It is also The Royal Ballet’s signature work. To mark the Company’s 75th birthday in 2006, Monica Mason and Christopher Newton revitalized its landmark 1946 production, which re-established Petipa’s choreography, as recorded by Imperial Ballet régisseur Nicholas Sergeyev, to a scenario and staging developed by Ninette de Valois herself. With Oliver Messel’s gorgeous original designs wonderfully re-imagined by Peter Farmer, and additional choreography by Anthony Dowell, Christopher Wheeldon and Frederick Ashton, today’s Sleeping Beauty not only captures the mood of the original but shows that this is very much a living work for The Royal Ballet, growing and changing with the Company while celebrating its past.

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