Submitted Photo The Fredonia Opera House will show a Bolshoi Ballet performance of “La Sylphide” at 7 p.m. Thursday.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House will present one of the world’s greatest ballet companies – the Bolshoi Ballet – performing “La Sylphide” this Thursday at 7 p.m. It will be presented in high definition, captured live via satellite from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

On his wedding day, the young Scotsman James is awakened with a kiss from an ethereal winged creature, a Sylph. Entranced by her beauty, James risks everything to pursue an unattainable love.

“La Sylphide” is one of the world’s oldest surviving ballets, and a treasure in Danish ballet master August Bournonville’s style. The ballet of the same name marks the start of dancing on pointe. It is not fortuitous that it was in that ballet that the ballerina – Marie Taglioni, the first ballerina of the romantic era – was to rise on pointe, since the Sylph, after all, is a maiden of the air.

Staged for the Bolshoi by Bournonville expert Johan Kobborg, this production is the ultimate romantic masterpiece. The ballet runs two hours, with one intermission.

Individual tickets to “La Sylphide” are $15, ($10 students). A special Live in HD Series flexible subscription of eight tickets that can be used however you want – one at a time to eight different HD Series events, all at once for eight people, or anything in between – is $116. Tickets may be purchased in person at the Opera House Box Office or by phone at 679-1891, Tuesday-Friday, 1-5 p.m. Tickets may be purchased online anytime at www.fredopera.org.

This presentation is made possible with support from the United Arts Appeal of Chautauqua County and the Arts Services Initiative’s Give for Greatness Program.

The 1891 Fredonia Opera House is a member-supported not-for-profit organization located in Village Hall in downtown Fredonia. For a complete schedule of events, visit www.fredopera.org.