Ensemble for the Romantic Century

Eve Wolf, Founder and Executive Artistic Director

A four-time New York Times Critic’s Pick, the Ensemble for the Romantic Century’s August 2017 production of Van Gogh’s Ear (Pershing Square Signature Theater), written by Ms. Wolf, which was hailed by Ben Brantley in the New York Times for its “uncanny beauty and emotionalism” and was a Times Critic’s Pick; Maestro, (The Duke on 42nd Street, 2019), about the famed conductor, Arturo Toscanini; Hans Christian Andersen: Tales Real and Imagined (The Duke on 42nd Street, 2019); Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart (Pershing Square Signature Theater, 2018), cited as a “compelling play with music” (New York Times) and “a completely unforgettable theatrical concert” (Theatermania); Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Pershing Square Signature Theater, 2018), The Dreyfus Affair (BAM-Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2017); and Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone (BAM, 2016), also chosen as a New York Times Critic’s Pick. ERC’s April 2015 production of Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon, also written by Ms. Wolf, was praised by the Times as “a dazzling musical and multimedia paean to human aspiration.” In 2016, the Times praised Anna Akhmatova: The Heart Is Not Made of Stone, for which Ms. Wolf wrote the script and performed, as “…engrossing…gorgeous,” and with “rapturous accounts of Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich…muscularity and shimmering lyricism of its music, so reflective of the Russian character.”

Since the onset of the pandemic, under Eve Wolf’s leadership, ERC has initiated a Radio Drama Division. The first two productions, Akhmatova: The Heart is not made of Stone, by Eve Wolf,recorded in London during the lockdown - starring Vanessa Redgrave and Paul Hilton; Real Writing, by Maureen Lawrence, with music direction by Eve Wolf, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Daisy Bevan. In production in London for January 2022 - Tchaikovsky: None but the Lonely Heart, by Eve Wolf, which will star Vanessa Redgrave and Stephen Fry. Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon, by Eve Wolf, will be recorded in Paris in February 2022 and will star Thibeault de Montalembert (star of Call My Agent) in the role of Jules Verne.

THE ENSEMBLE FOR THE ROMANTIC CENTURY, NOW IN ITS 19TH SEASON,HAS SET OUT TO ACHIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE:
TIME TRAVEL.

ERC’s unique productions merge dramatic and fully staged scripts with music, recapturing the past with a sense of immediacy that transports, illuminates, and captivates. Whether through live performances or radio dramas, the scripts, drawn from historical material that includes letters, diaries, memoirs, newspaper articles, poetry, and literature, create an intricate counterpoint to the musical program. The subject matter spans across centuries, and ranges from Tolstoy to Toscanini, from Verne to Van Gogh, all brought to life through the fusion of drama and sound. ERC believes that one can understand Freud more deeply by listening to the erotic cabaret music of fin de siècle Vienna and that one can appreciate Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata more profoundly by listening to the composer speak of his tortured love life and his debilitating deafness. By illuminating the interplay among literature, biography, and music ERC has transformed the concert experience.

The Romantic Century was about imagination and experimentation. Elevating the human condition through art: that is the spirit that ERC hopes to summon.