Combining her classical music education with her knowledge of the French cabaret, and her lyric mezzo soprano voice, Sylvie Braitman is equally at home with leading roles in regional opera and singing the popular music she heard as a child at her parents' Parisian cafß. Tonight she presents an evening of French cabaret songs from the perspective of les Demoiselles de Pigalle (the ladies of Pigalle). Nestled below La Butte Montmartre, Paris' hill of artists and intellectuals, the infamous Pigalle teems with excitement. This red light district bristles with the city music halls, cabaret, clubs, and bawdy reviews such as Le Moulin Rouge. The street walkers of Pigalle have lit the imagination of many lyricists. In their songs, the romanticized images of its working women vary; some are happy and satisfied with their situations, others are victims of fate or the cruelty of men and still others yearn to escape but fail. Accompanied by some of the Bay Area's finest jazz and classical musicians, Sylvie borrows heavily from the repertoire of Edith Piaf, presenting a uniquely Parisian lyrical point of view courtesy of composers and lyricists like Kurt Weill, Michel Emer, Marguerite Monnod, Cole Porter, and Jean Lenoir.