Great Performances

1971-01-28 | TV-G | en

Bray Poor

Drama Comedy Documentary

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Seasons & Episodes

EP1 The Magic of Grace Bumbry

Oct. 03,2025

Discover Grace Bumbry’s inspiring rise to global opera fame. Spotlighting her historic performances, the film explores the racial barriers she overcame to triumph in her 1966 performance as "Carmen."

EP2 Great Performances at the Met: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Oct. 19,2025

Rossini’s effervescent comedy retakes the stage in Bartlett Sher’s madcap production. Aigul Akhmetshina headlines a winning ensemble as the feisty heroine, Rosina, alongside Jack Swanson, in his Met debut, as her secret beloved, Count Almaviva. Andrey Zhilikhovsky stars as Figaro, the infamous barber of Seville, with Peter Kálmán as Dr. Bartolo and Alexander Vinogradov as Don Basilio.

EP3 Tiler Peck: Suspending Time

Nov. 07,2025

Follow acclaimed ballerina Tiler Peck as she overcomes injury to reclaim her place on stage and debut her own choreography with New York City Ballet, revealing the resilience and artistry behind a modern-day prima ballerina.

EP4 Twelfth Night

Nov. 14,2025

The Shakespearean comedy of mistaken identity tells the romantic misadventures of twins Sebastian and Viola after they survive a shipwreck, including revenge plots and tricks of love. Recorded this summer at the newly renovated Delacorte Theater in Central Park, the production is directed by Tony Award nominee Saheem Ali.

EP5 Nutcracker from English National Ballet

Dec. 16,2025

Experience the holiday classic in a new light, featuring over 100 dancers and musicians performing at the London Coliseum.

EP6 From Vienna: The New Year’s Celebration 2026

Jan. 01,2026

The famed Vienna Philharmonic rings in the New Year with its annual concert from Vienna's Musikverein conducted for the first time by Yannick Nézet-Séguin with performances by the Vienna State Ballet and location segments hosted by Hugh Bonneville.

EP7 Movies for Grownups® Awards 2026 with AARP The Magazine

Feb. 22,2026

Iconic and beloved screen and stage performer Alan Cumming returns as host for this awards show in which Adam Sandler receives the Career Achievement Award.

EP8 Samara Joy at Royal Albert Hall

Feb. 27,2026

A number one album and a double Grammy-win in 2023 put jazz vocalist Samara Joy on the map, officially establishing the Bronx native as the next jazz sensation and a legend in the making, with frequent comparisons to Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. Fresh from another double win at the 2025 Grammys, Joy makes her much-anticipated debut at London’s legendary Royal Albert Hall.

EP9 Great Performances at the Met: La Bohème

Mar. 20,2026

Experience Zeffirelli’s beloved production set in 19th-century Paris telling the story of Puccini’s young artists and lovers that share joy, passion, and heartbreak featuring Juliana Grigoryan as Mimì and Freddie De Tommaso as Rodolfo.

EP10 Great Performances at the Met: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Apr. 01,2026

In this new adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel set shortly before the outbreak of World War II, two Jewish cousins invent an anti-fascist superhero and launch their own comic-book series, hoping to recruit America into the fight against Nazism.

EP11 Now Hear This – “Brahms: Free But Alone”

Apr. 10,2026

Johannes Brahms was a quiet, private person, but he lived a full life, bearing a responsibility he didn’t want, a woman he couldn’t be with, and a legacy he couldn’t live up to. Scott Yoo journeys across Germany with pianist Elisabeth Brauss and cellists Johannes Moser and Max Hornung to find a window into Brahms’ inner life.

EP12 Great Performances at the Met: La Sonnambula

Apr. 12,2026

Nadine Sierra stars as Amina in Bellini’s tale of love lost and found. This new production by Rolando Villazón—the tenor who has embarked on a second career as a director—retains the opera’s original setting in the Swiss Alps but uses its plot to explore the emotional and psychological valleys of the mind.

EP13 Now Hear This – “Everyone Loves Joplin”

Apr. 17,2026

Scott Joplin was the king of ragtime, a new kind music for the turn of the 20th century. Rick Benjamin’s Paragon Ragtime Orchestra takes Scott Yoo back in time to experience the music, movies and style of that era.

EP15 Now Hear This – “The Call of Istanbul”

Apr. 24,2026

Istanbul sits at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, a melting pot of diverse peoples, languages and ideas. With star Turkish pianist Fazil Say, conductor Çem Mansur, and a host of Anatolian folk and Turkish jazz musicians, Scott Yoo and his wife, flutist Alice Dade, explore the city.

EP16 Now Hear This – “The Iceland Sound”

May. 01,2026

Fewer people live in Iceland than in Wichita, Kansas, yet it produces some of the best musicians in the world. To find out how, Scott Yoo crosses this sunlit, rainy, volcanic land of extremes to meet composers Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Daniel Bjarnason, popular musician JFDR, instrument makers, music historians, and one of Iceland’s most famous chefs.

EP17 Josh Groban: An Intimate Evening at The Union Chapel

May. 08,2026

Josh Groban returns to PBS in a special, personal concert staged in the intimate and historic setting of London’s Union Chapel. Recorded in October 2025, the concert captures the acclaimed vocalist showcasing his most beloved songs alongside new material, all reimagined within the chapel’s acoustics. Between songs, Groban speaks about what makes these songs personal to him.

EP18 Suffs

May. 08,2026

Created by Tony Award winner Shaina Taub, this musical recorded from Broadway tells the story of the American suffragist movement and the remarkable friendships, heartbreak, and action that brought women together—or, in some cases, tore them apart.

EP19 Irving Berlin’s Top Hat

May. 15,2026

Inspired by the iconic 1935 movie musical starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, this acclaimed Chichester Festival Theatre revival recorded from the West End in January 2026 is directed and choreographed by three-time Tony winner Kathleen Marshall.

EP20 Great Performances at the Met: Arabella

May. 17,2026

Strauss’ romance brings the glamour of 19th-century Vienna to the Met stage in a production by legendary Otto Schenk. Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen makes her role debut as Arabella, a young noblewoman in search of love on her own terms. Soprano Louise Alder makes her Met debut as her sister, Zdenka, and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny is the count who sweeps Arabella off her feet.

EP21 An Evening with Nicole Scherzinger

May. 22,2026

Recorded in October 2025, Nicole Scherzinger performs at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the first time in her first major UK solo show in 13 years. Accompanied by a full orchestra, Scherzinger sings a mix of beloved Broadway standards and pop hits from her career as lead singer of The Pussycat Dolls.

EP22 Great Performances at the Met: Andrea Chénier

Jun. 14,2026

Giordano’s tragedy stars tenor Piotr Beczała as the virtuous poet who falls victim to the intrigue and violence of the French Revolution. Soprano Sonya Yoncheva stars as Chénier’s aristocratic lover, Maddalena di Coigny, with baritone Igor Golovatenko as Carlo Gérard. Daniele Rustioni takes the podium to lead Nicolas Joël’s staging.

EP23 Great Performances at the Met: I Puritani

Jul. 12,2026

Charles Edwards makes his company directorial debut after many successes as a set designer, while soprano Lisette Oropesa and tenor Lawrence Brownlee star as Elvira and Arturo, brought together by love and torn apart by the political rifts of the English Civil War. Marco Armiliato conducts with baritone Artur Ruciński.

EP24 Great Performances at the Met: Eugene Onegin

Aug. 21,2026

Soprano Asmik Grigorian returns to the Met as Tatiana, the lovestruck young heroine in Tchaikovsky’s opera adaptation of Pushkin’s novel. Baritone Igor Golovatenko reprises his portrayal of Onegin, who realizes his affection for her all too late. Tony Award winner Deborah Warner directs.

Great Performances Trailers

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The best in the performing arts from across America and around the world including a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

Great Performances Audience Reviews

EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

chiarafumo "Nixon in China", which was shown on April 15, 1988. Peter Sellars directed his usual wonderful cast of James Maddalena as Richard Nixon and Sandford Sylvan as Chou En-lai in John Adams' superb opera about Nixon's visit to China in February, 1972. (Alice Goodman's libretto was sculpted from the actual words of the historical characters.) One of the nicer touches was that Walter Cronkite, who followed the Nixon entourage, gave the historical grounding for the opera before the performance and then during the intermission. The music is lyrical and incantatory and the entire cast does it justice. And the staging!... I vividly remember the end of Act 1, when Nixon and Chou toast each other's countries ("Gambei") and as they clink glasses a score of newspaper photographers snap their pictures -- and then all the house lights went out! Wowzy-wow-wow! And Nixon's entrance, as he walks out of a huge mock-up of Air Force One and gives his stiff arms-up salute made me applaud wildly, and I am a flaming leftist. Ah, if only this were on DVD. Or even VHS. It's unfortunate that it can't be seen at all. After I emailed WNET, the original sponsors of "Great Performances", I received a response that said that they did not own the copyright and weren't really sure who did! Consider this posting a cry in the wilderness -- please, someone make this work of art available to us.

Scurfield "Great Performances" is the longest running performing arts anthology on television. It is part of the PBS tradition of bringing the arts to viewers free of charge.