On Friday, August 21, Celtic rock group The Elders will be taking the stage at 8pm. Since forming in 1998, The Elders have brought their musical mix of amped-up roots rock, powerful vocals, blazing instrumentals and top-notch songwriting to festivals, pubs and theaters across the United States and Ireland. These six gentlemen create an original sound that transcends the stereotypical notion of Celtic music, and they deliver it with passion and fire! The songs are mystical, comical, political and cultural, and tell stories of people, places and events - some distant, some recent, some real and some imagined. Don't miss this evening of "arse-kickin' music from the heartland!" Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door.

Saturday, August 22, the Riviera presents Goldmine Pickers, a young, passionate, four-piece band weaving together roots and inspiration from bluegrass, jazz, folk, and Irish traditions to create an energetic new space in Americana music. The group has magnetized audiences in venues ranging from intimate spaces to expansive concert halls with their memorable acoustic performances that feature inspiring interplay between guitar, mandolin, upright bass, and a fiery fiddler, with soaring, heartfelt harmonies. Opening up the evening, The Bearded Ladies take Americana music to a whole new level of party with their danceable blend of bluegrass and jazz. The Ladies (four rustic gents with a penchant for pickin') take the energy and passion of a punk band and blend it with the elegance of a string quartet, serving up a foot-stomping good time while maintaining an invite to your grandma's dinner table. Tickets are $10, with the show beginning at 8pm.

Finishing up the weekend's events, the Riviera presents Il Viaggio a Reims Opera in Cinema on Sunday, August 23 at 3pm. Rossini's last opera in the Italian language (all of his later works were in French,) Il Viaggio was commissioned to celebrate the coronation of French King Charles X in Rheims in 1825, and has been critically acclaimed as one of his finest compositions. It is a demanding work, requiring 14 soloists (three sopranos, one contralto, two tenors, four baritones, and four basses.) The uniqueness and audacity of the opera is compounded by its plot, which concerns a group of people who plan excitedly for a "viaggio" (journey) to the city of Reims that at the end never happens. Directed by Luca Ronconi and featuring sets and costumes by Italian architect Gae Aulenti, the true spirit of the Opera is perfectly captured in this high-definition production from Teatro alla Scala. $16; encore presentation August 26 at 7pm.

Saturday, January 21: 3pm
Wednesday, January 25 through Friday, January 27: 6pm
Sunday, January 29: 3pm
Tuesday, January 31 through Thursday, February 2; Saturday, February 4: 8:30pm

$6 Adult, $5 Child/Student/Senior

This dark, twisted drama from Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, Bad Education, Talk to Her) is based on Thierry Jonquet's novel Tarantula. Starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya and Marisa Paredes.

Tuesday, January 31 through Thursday, February 2; Saturday, February 4: 6pm
Tuesday, February 7 through Thursday, February 9: 8:30pm

$6 Adult, $5 Child/Student/Senior

Saturday, February 4; Sunday, February 5: 3pm
Tuesday, February 7 through Thursday, February 9: 6pm
Saturday, February 11: 3pm

$6 Adult, $5 Child/Student/Senior

Sunday, February 5: Kickoff at 6:25pm

Friday, February 10; Saturday, February 11; Tuesday, February 14 through Friday, February 17: 6pm
Saturday, February 18; Sunday, February 19: 3:15pm
Wednesday, February 22 through Friday, February 24: 7pm
Saturday, February 25: 3pm & 7pm

$6 Adult, $5 Child/Student/Senior

Sunday/Dimanche - 10 minutes - English - Patrick Doyon
Every Sunday, it's the same old routine! The train clatters through the village and almost shakes the pictures off the wall. In the church, Dad dreams about his toolbox. And of course later Grandma will get a visit and the animals will meet their fate.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore -
15 minutes - No Dialogue - William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/illustrator William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a hybrid style of animation that harkens back to silent films and MGM Technicolor musicals. Morris Lessmore is old fashioned and cutting edge at the same time.

La Luna - 7 minutes - English - Enrico Casaroasa
A fable of a young boy who is coming of age in the most peculiar of circumstances. Tonight is the very first time his Papa and Grandpa are taking him to work. In an old wooden boat they row far out to sea, and with no land in sight, they stop and wait. A big surprise awaits the little boy as he discovers his family's most unusual line of work.

A Morning Stroll - 7 minutes - No Dialogue - Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
When a New Yorker walks past a chicken on his morning stroll, we're left to wonder which one is the real city slicker.

Wild Life - 13 minutes - English - Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
Calgary, 1909: an Englishman moves to the Canadian frontier, but is singularly unsuited to it. His letters home are much sunnier than the reality. Intertitles compare his fate to that of a comet.

Additional Highly Commended Titles:

Nullarbor - 10 minutes - English - Alister Lockhart
An animated road movie set across the vast and barren landscape of Australia's Nullarbor Plain.

Amazonia - 5 minutes - English - Sam Chen
In the dangerous world of the Amazon Rainforest, finding a meal proves to be an impossible task for a little tree-frog named Bounce. His luck changes when he meets Biggy, a blue-bellied treefrog who takes him under his guidance and shows him the ways of the jungle in this animated journey set to Beethoven's Symphony No.8.

Skylight - 5 minutes - English - David Baas
Skylight is a mock animated documentary about the ecological plight of penguins in the Antarctic, possibly foretelling cataclysmic results for the rest of the world.

Hybrid Union - 4 minutes - English - Serguei Kouchnerov
In the imaginary land of Cyberdesert, Plus and Minus struggle with a dependency on an outdated source of energy. The mysterious self-sufficient Smart presents a new challenge for Plus and Minus and forces them to form an alliance - The Hybrid Union!

Friday, February 10; Saturday, February 11; Tuesday, February 14 through Friday, February 17: 8pm
Saturday, February 18; Sunday, February 19: 1pm
Wednesday, February 22 through Friday, February 24: 8:45pm
Saturday, February 25: 4:45pm & 8:45pm

$6 Adult, $5 Child/Student/Senior

Pentecost - 11 minutes - English - Peter McDonald and Eimear O'Kane
When Damian is forced to serve as an altar boy at an important mass in his local parish, he faces a difficult choice: conform to the status quo, or serve an extended ban from his life's passion - football.

Raju - 24 minutes - English/German - Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
Director Max Zaehle, together with his Director of Photography Sin Huh, and wonderful actors Wotan Wilke Möhring and Julia Richter, succeed at making the moral dilemma faced by couples wishing to adopt emotionally palpable.

The Shore - 31 minutes - English/Gaelic - Terry George and Oorlagh George
After 25 years in exile, Jim Mahon (Ciaran Hinds) returns to Ireland to show his American daughter Patty (Kerry Condon) his Belfast roots. But things don't go as planned when she learns of a secret love triangle and a long lost best friend, Paddy (Conleth Hill). Their reconciliation leads to hilarious confusion. Directed by two time Oscar nominee Terry George, The Shore won Best Director and Best Actor at the Rhode Island Film Festival, and is nominated for an Irish Film and Television Award.

Time Freak - 11 minutes - English - Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
A neurotic inventor creates a time machine, only to get caught up travelling around yesterday.

Tuba Atlantic - 25 minutes - Norwegian - Hallvar Witzø
Everybody is going to die one day. Oskar, 70, is going to die in 6 days. He is now ready to forgive his brother for a disagreement years ago. Will he reach his brother, who he believes live on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, before it's too late?

Saturday, February 11: 9pm

$3-5 suggested cover

Sunday, February 12: 3pm
Tuesday, February 21: 6pm

$16

This is The Royal Opera's first complete presentation of Puccini's Il Trittico since 1965. Leading director Richard Jones staged his witty, darkly comic realization of Gianni Schicchi for The Royal Opera in 2007, and here he completes the trio. Royal Opera Music Director Antonio Pappano will conduct. Il Trittico ('The Triptych'), unveiled at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, in 1918, represented an operatic departure. Instead of a single evening-length narrative, Puccini
offered three contrasting one-act works.

Saturday, February 18: 9pm

$5

Saturday, February 25: 1pm
Tuesday, February 28 through Friday, March 2: 8:30pm
Saturday, March 3: 6pm
Sunday, March 4: 3pm

$6 Adult, $5 Child/Student/Senior

Director Phillip Stölzl (Northface) returns to the very wellspring of Romanticism - Goethe's autobiographical masterpiece "The Sorrows of Young Werther" - and conjures up a beguiling and refreshingly innocent period romance. Starring Alexander Fehling, Miriam Stein, Moritz Bleibtreu, Volker Bruch, Burghart Klaußner, Henry Hübchen.

Sunday, February 26: Doors 4:30, Show 6pm

$8 (free with KVBA Second Sunday Series pass)

Tuesday, February 28 through Friday, March 2: 6pm
Saturday, March 3: 8:30pm
Tuesday, March 6 through Thursday, March 8: 8:30pm

$6 Adult, $5 Child, Student, Senior