Episodes

With a career spanning more than half a century, renowned folk artist, political activist, and avid environmentalist, Pete Seeger, turned 90 in May of 2009. In honor of the milestone birthday, a multi-generational roster of artists, whose music has been shaped by Seeger’s vision, gathered at Madison Square Garden on May 3 to celebrate his lifetime achievement.

Wicked’s Idina Menzel and Rent’s Adam Pascal join Great Performances favorite, internationally renowned vocalist Josh Groban in a spectacular London concert revival of Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’ 1986 cult musical Chess. Featuring diamond-sharp lyrics by Tim Rice (Evita, The Lion King), and the hit-filled production (“One Night in Bangkok,” “I Know Him So Well,” “The Anthem”).

Long-time friends and former band mates Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood team up for a once-in-a-lifetime reunion concert in Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood: Live From Madison Square Garden. The special telecast captures Clapton and Winwood at New York’s Madison Square Garden performing songs from their short-lived Blind Faith collaboration.

Wonder rocketed to stardom at age 12 when he was signed to Motown Records as “Little Stevie Wonder”. Over nearly four decades, Wonder has reinvigorated the music scene with his unique sound, produced nine number one records and won a total of 22 Grammy Awards – and there is no end in sight for the successful superstar.

The 90-minute program showcases aerial dancers off the cliffs of Yosemite National Park, synchronized swimmers underwater at Coral Reef National Monument, and follows some of the country's most exciting young dancers to Mammoth Cave, Wright Brothers National Memorial, the remains of a sugar cane plantation at Virgin Islands National Park, and the sacred terrain of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

2009 Emmy Nominee Ian McKellen recreates his recent stage performance of Shakespeare's tragic monarch in a special television adaptation. Directed by Trevor Nunn, the telecast includes nearly all the original cast members of the sold-out Royal Shakespeare Company production that premiered in Stratford-Upon-Avon in April 2007.

David Leveaux’s stylish production, with sumptuous costumes and sets by Gregory Gale and Tom Pye respectively, remains true to Rostand’s 1897 heartbreaker of a play, bursting with swashbuckling gascons and duplicitous noblemen, fops and ruffians. Its tale of the eponymous philosopher-swordsman (Kline), who pines for his beautiful cousin Roxane (Garner), yet is too ashamed of his large nose.

Hitman: David Foster & Friends features Foster himself presiding center stage at the keyboard. The evening is a virtual jukebox worth of songs written by and/or produced by him. Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds and brother Kevon offer “I Swear;” Brian McKnight revisits Earth, Wind and Fire’s “After the Love Has Gone;” former Chicago front man Peter Cetera gets down with “Hard to Say I’m Sorry,”

From its opening vocal salvo, Domingo’s thrilling account of Lehar’s “Gern hab ich die Frau’n gekuesst” from Paganini, through Netrebko’s swirling Gypsy rendition of “Heia in den Bergen” (from Emmerich Kálmán’s Die Csárdásfürstin) to Villazón’s heart-breaking “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz” (Lehar’s Land of Smiles), the program is a welcome reminder of the glittering lost world of operetta.

From soccer-playing son of a Modena, Italy, baker to onstage partner of "La Stupenda," world-renowned soprano Joan Sutherland, from media darling to truly one-of-a-kind superstar, it is a story writ as large as the great one himself.

Hailed by the Times of London as an “exceedingly yummy operatic cake,” and “the operatic show of the season,” this interpretation of Donizetti’s rousing La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment) premiered at Covent Garden in winter 2007 to rave reviews. Join GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Met for one of Donizetti’s most cherished -- and perhaps one of the most vocally challenging -- operas.

A trio of operas in three short stories - the first a gruesome murder melodrama, the second is a passionate tearjerker, and the third is a dark comedy of death and an inheritance. Each story is strikingly different from the preceding one.

Franco Zeffirelli’s timeless interpretation of the Puccini favorite has been delighting audiences at the Met for more than 20 years. GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Met is there when yet another magnificent cast takes to the stage in this enduring classic. Exciting young conductor Nicola Luisotti presides over a glorious vocal ensemble led by Angela Gheorghiu, who sings Mimì at the Met.

Since 1996, when he made a last-minute debut at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy, when he was all of 23, Juan Diego Flórez has moved quickly into the front ranks of today's opera stars. Now 34, the Peruvian-born tenor enjoys a career firmly planted in the bel canto repertoire of Donizetti, Bellini, and, especially, Rossini, thanks to his light, bright, agile voice.

Richard Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde is visually spare and dramatically gripping interpretation. Join GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Met for this special presentation, when Deborah Voigt—one of the world’s most celebrated Wagnerian sopranos—undertakes the iconic role of Isolde for the first time at the Met. Robert Dean Smith, a veteran Tristan of the Bayreuth Festi