Great Performances — Season 39

Aired 30 September 2011 • 53 min

An American favorite for his award-winning role in the hit TV series House, the versatile British actor Hugh Laurie showcases his musical side in an atmospheric personal odyssey filmed on location in New Orleans.

Aired 2 December 2011 • 146 min

Beloved tenor Andrea Bocelli performs a free concert on Central Park's Great Lawn, with the New York Philharmonic conducted by its music director Alan Gilbert. Joining Bocelli on stage on this memorable night are Celine Dion, Tony Bennett, Chris Botti and David Foster.

Aired 16 December 2011

John Neumeier -- director and chief choreographer for Hamburg Ballet -- blends dance, dramatic storytelling and spectacle into a unique interpretation of a classic Hans Christian Andersen’s tale. With choreography, sets, costumes, and lighting, all by Neumeier, this ballet—as much theater as it is dance—takes the dancers into deep emotional terrain.

Aired 1 January 2012

Aired 6 January 2012

Herbie Hancock, Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil Celebrate Gershwin, featuring that classic piece as well as "An American in Paris" and Hancock's unique improvisation on the great standard "Someone to Watch Over Me."

Aired 13 January 2012

Anna Deavere Smith's latest production, Let Me Down Easy. The Great Performances production was recorded in February 2011 in the Kreeger Theater at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater in Washington, DC, launching a national tour that concluded in September.

Aired 20 January 2012

The Metropolitan Opera premiere of Donizetti's Anna Bolena, starring soprano Anna Netrebko in her highly anticipated first North American performances of the tour-de-force title role, will be the 2012 season opener of Great Performances at the Met.

Aired 27 January 2012

Tony Bennett: Duets II features the singer's greatest hits, performed by Bennett and today's biggest stars, including John Mayer, Michael Buble, k.d. lang, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Queen Latifah, Norah Jones, Josh Groban, Faith Hill, Alejandro Sanz, Carrie Underwood and more.

Aired 24 February 2012

Broadway's smash hit musical Memphis, winner of four Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score, Best Book and Best Orchestrations, comes to Great Performances. Memphis is the first Best Musical Tony Award winner to air on U.S. national television with its original principals while continuing a successful Broadway run and national tour.

Aired 26 February 2012

Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads his first Met performances of Mozart's Don Giovanni in a new production directed by Tony Award winner Michael Grandage in his Met debut.

Aired 29 March 2012

The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater, a celebration of Yiddish theater pioneers Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky by their grandson, Michael Tilson Thomas, Artistic Director of the New World Symphony.

Aired 29 March 2012

The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall, a fully-staged, lavish 25th anniversary mounting of Andrew Lloyd Webber's long-running Broadway and West End extravaganza. Ramin Karimloo and Sierra Boggess star in a spectacular presentation from the ornate London concert venue with a host of special guest stars at the conclusion.

Aired 25 March 2012

Philip Glass's inspirational opera Satyagraha (Sanskrit for "truth force"), in the first revival of Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch's innovative 2008 production.

Aired 30 March 2012

San Francisco Symphony's Centennial Season opening night gala, conducted by Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. The two-hour broadcast is hosted by author Amy Tan and features Tilson Thomas conducting the Orchestra and two of the leading artists of our time: legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman and the dynamic pianist Lang Lang.

Aired 22 April 2012

Renee Fleming reprises one of her most popular interpretations: the title role in Handel's Rodelinda, under the baton of Baroque specialist Harry Bicket in the revival of Stephen Wadsworth's acclaimed production.

Aired 13 May 2012

Three of the opera world’s leading stars—Jonas Kaufmann, Marina Poplavskaya, and René Pape—sing the principal roles in a new production of Gounod’s Faust, directed by Tony Award winner Des McAnuff in his Met debut. Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts his first Met performances of the opera.

Aired 18 May 2012

The Enchanted Island is a world premiere work that combines Baroque music with a new, English-language libretto featuring characters from Shakespeare, and a starry cast including Danielle de Niese, Joyce DiDonato, David Daniels, Plácido Domingo, and Luca Pisaroni.

Aired 17 June 2012

Angela Meade, Marcello Giodani, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Ferruccio Furlanetto star in Verdi’s Ernani.

Aired 5 August 2012

Star soprano Anna Netrebko sings her first Met performances of the title role in Manon, Massenet’s opera about a country girl with conflicting desires for love and luxury who is drawn into a life of glamorous -- but hollow -- Parisian sophistication.

Aired 10 August 2012

The concert features the BSO, Boston Pops Orchestra and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, under the direction of conductors John Williams, Keith Lockhart and Andris Nelsons. Performances by pianists Emanuel Ax and Peter Serkin, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and vocalist James Taylor.

Aired 11 August 2012

THIRTEEN’s Great Performances will present 12-year-old classical crossover prodigy Jackie Evancho’s second television special Jackie Evancho: Music of the Movies.

Aired 26 August 2012

Acclaimed French soprano Natalie Dessay makes her Met role debut as Violetta, the fallen woman who sacrifices her last chance for love, in Verdi’s La Traviata.

Aired 31 August 2012

Under the baton of the dynamic and electric guest maestro, Gustavo Dudamel, the Vienna Philharmonic performs the finale of Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” from the opera “La Gioconda.”

Aired 10 September 2012

Robert Lepage’s acclaimed new production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen.