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Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.

“A fantastic night” proclaimed musiccomh.com, while thestage.co asked “Is there an original pop musical stuffed with better melodies?” neatly echoing Time’s initial 1988 assessment: “One of the best rock scores ever produced.” Adding to the excitement is the 50-piece City of London Philharmonic, led by David Firman, and the 100-voice West End Chorus.

ABBA composers Andersson and Ulvaeus created their first musical theater work more than a decade before striking pay dirt with their phenomenon, Mamma Mia. It was the inspired idea of lyricist/librettist Rice to match the pair with his cold war tale: the East/West Chess Championship and the romantic triangle that develops between the Russian and American competitors and the beautiful woman who manages one and falls in love with the other. Chart topper Groban (Awake, Closer, Noel) sings the Russian player, Anatoly; Rent Tony and Drama Desk Award-nominee Pascal is the American Freddie, and Tony-winner Menzel (Wicked Witch Elphaba) is Florence, the woman between them.

Chess in Concert is a co-production of THIRTEEN, Reprise Records and Peppermint Pictures, in association with Heartaches Ltd. Directed for telecast by David Horn and produced by Austin Shaw, it was recorded at Albert Hall May 12, 2008. Hugh Wooldridge staged the concert adaptation.

Josh Groban includes among his many Great Performances appearances Josh Groban in Concert (2002), Josh Groban at the Greek (2004) and last December’s David Foster & Friends. Adam Pascal was most recently seen in the series’ My Favorite Broadway: The Love Songs (2001). Chess in Concert marks Idina Menzel’s Great Performances debut.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS.

The program premieres Wednesday, May 27 at 8 p.m. (ET) on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances on PBS HD (check local listings).

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Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.

For Miranda, bringing In the Heights to life began when he was a sophomore at Wesleyan College. Having grown up as a first generation American in one of the toughest neighborhoods in New York City, Miranda always struggled to find his identity and place in life. Writing about the stories, sacrifices and sounds of the people from his neighborhood was a way to share his experience. “When I saw Rent, it was the first time I’d seen a musical that took place now,” recounted Miranda. “A light bulb went off and it was like ‘oh, you can write a musical that’s about you, about your life.’ If you had told me it’d take eight years to finish [In the Heights] I probably would have been too scared to continue.”

In addition to thrilling extended performance sequences of the original cast of In the Heights onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, this Great Performances program offers an intimate look at the production backstage and off-stage. Producers from @radical.media first identified the show’s potential at one of the early readings, and began filming the process shortly thereafter. This provides unprecedented access to the cast as they went through workshops, to off-Broadway, and finally to Broadway. Karen Olivo (Miranda’s on-stage love interest, who is now starring in a new version of West Side Story as “Anita”), describes her dedication to performing as more like an “addiction”; Mandy Gonzalez finds that her real life experience growing up with immigrant parents mirrors that of her character Nina; and Seth Stewart (Graffiti Pete), who has struggled to balance his love of dancing with his football career, is emotionally overwhelmed by seeing his image seven stories tall in Times Square. For Broadway veteran Priscilla Lopez (Camila), it is a journey back in time, as she recalls how her role in the original cast of A Chorus Line changed her life, while for Chris Jackson (Benny), the stakes are extremely high, as the success or failure of the show will directly impact how he can provide for his family, which includes an autistic child. These disparate stories all come together in the rehearsal hall and onstage, as the In the Heights company takes Broadway by storm with their high octane song and dance numbers.

In the Heights: Chasing Broadway Dreams is a @radical.media production for THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer, Michael Kantor (Broadway: The American Musical, Make ‘Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America) is consulting producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS. Major funding is also provided by the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

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The sold-out engagement, also starring Jennifer Garner and Daniel Sunjata, closed last January, but captured in HDTV by Thirteen/WNET New York’s GREAT PERFORMANCES for PBS. The results can be savored Wednesday, January 7 at 8 p.m. ET (check local listings).

“I’ve wanted to play this part ever since I saw it in high school,” Kline says. “He’s living a life as large as life gets, if not larger. I think it’s very romantic.”

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 to tell her, is an actor’s dream role. He pens poetry and love letters to her in the name of the man she loves, the tongue-tied Christian de Neuvillette (Sunjata). Many years later the truth is revealed – in a sure-fire, four-hankie finale.

The late Anthony Burgess translated and adapted the 2007 production, which was recorded on stage in performance at the Richard Rodgers Theater, January 3 and 4, 2008.

An Ellen M. Krass Production with Thirteen/WNET New York, Cyrano de Bergerac is produced by Ellen M. Krass, with Bonnie Comley, Stewart F. Lane and David Horn as executive producers. Matthew Diamond directs for television, with Gary Bradley as editor.

Oscar- and Tony Award-winner Kline (A Fish Called Wanda, The Pirates of Penzance, On the 20th Century) made his GREAT PERFORMANCES debut in another sword-wielding classical role, Hamlet (1990). He starred in and directed (with Kirk Browning) the telecast

GREAT PERFORMANCES is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS.

GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET launches its third season on PBS with the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Doctor Atomic, John Adams’ powerful portrait of the physicist presiding over the creation of the atom bomb, Monday, December 29 at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings). Presented by Thirteen/WNET New York in high definition and 5.1 digital surround sound, the 2005 work stars Canadian baritone Gerald Finley as the Faustian J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Father of the A-Bomb.” Alan Gilbert conducts.

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UPDATE: Read an interview conducted by Thirteen.org with John Adams.

“An ambitious, haunting work,” proclaimed The New York Times of Penny Woolcock’s cinematic new production, with special praise for Finley (“vocally visceral and emotionally nuanced”) and Gilbert. “The performance he draws from the Met Orchestra and Chorus is a revelation. This score continues to impress as Mr. Adams’ most complex and masterly music.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer (On the Transmigration of Souls) often tackles contemporary and controversial subjects, such as his first opera, 1987’s Nixon in China. The second, The Death of Klinghoffer, followed in 1991, with Doctor Atomic having its world premiere at San Francisco Opera 14 years later. This production marks his Met debut.

Set in New Mexico in the summer of 1945, as scientists, led by Oppenheimer, and the military prepare to test the first nuclear bomb, the work neatly limns events that will radically change the course of history. “Adams has created a score filled with color, syncopation and lush interludes,” wrote Associated Press.

Doctor Atomic, sung in English to Peter Sellars’ libretto, is directed for television by Gary Halvorson and hosted by acclaimed Met mezzo Susan Graham. Julian Crouch designed the sets; Catherine Zuber the costumes; Brian MacDevitt the lighting. Andrew Dawson is choreographer. The production was transmitted as part of The Met: Live in HD series on November 8, 2008 and was recorded for this telecast.

Bonus material includes a feature on J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Also in the large cast are mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty; bass-baritone Richard Paul Fink (Edward Teller); bass-baritone Eric Owens (General Leslie Groves); tenor Thomas Glenn (Robert Wilson); and contralto Meredith Arwady (Pasqualita).

The Met’s new production of Doctor Atomic was underwritten through a generous grant from Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman. Funding for the GREAT PERFORMANCES telecast of Doctor Atomic is being provided by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

GREAT PERFORMANCES is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS. Corporate support for GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET is provided by Toll Brothers.

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Airing in high definition and 5.1 surround sound, the evening, recorded September 24, marked the opening salvo of the four-month Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds, a New York City-wide salute to the composer, conductor and educator presented by Carnegie Hall and the New York Philharmonic celebrating the 90th anniversary of his birth and 50th anniversary of his appointment as New York Philharmonic Music Director.

“Jazzy energy and the Jets,” hailed The New York Times, while The Newark Star-Ledger called the program “a dizzying sampler of the composer’s wit and poetry.”

Featuring selections ranging from the 1944 ballet Fancy Free through West Side Story (1957) to his final opera A Quiet Place (1983), the telecast offers a virtual sound portrait of Leonard Bernstein’s life. “His music is intensely biographical,” says Tilson Thomas, a close friend and colleague of Bernstein, who first met the maestro in 1968 and, in 1971, succeeded him as conductor of the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts on national TV. “The pieces do reflect his early, middle and late years,” Tilson Thomas says, “optimistic, reflective and then the concern that somehow all the disparate themes will come out in the end, that there will be some kind of resolution and peace.”

Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, certainly Bernstein’s most famous work, opens the program, followed by selections from A Quiet Place, with Hampson and Upshaw as an estranged father and daughter. On the lighter side, Ebersole scores with the randy “I Can Cook Too” from On the Town, then joins Upshaw, Hampson and Ma for “Ya Got Me” from the same show.

Other highlights: Meditation No. 1 from Mass (Ma), “What a Movie!” from Trouble in Tahiti (Upshaw), “To What You Said” from Songfest (Hampson and Ma), and “Gee, Officer Krupke” from West Side Story (students of The Juilliard School). The orchestra itself gets another chance to shine with the slinky, hip-swaying Danzon from Fancy Free.

Music Director of the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969 and Laureate Conductor from 1969 to 1990, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) brought his own particular New World sensibility to classical music. Equally at home in a Broadway theater or concert hall, the beloved ‘Lenny’ – who performed at Carnegie Hall more than 400 times during his career – had an enthusiasm for an understanding of music far beyond his classical realm, extending into jazz, world music, American song, and 1960s pop and rock.

A popular presence on television – his Young People’s Concerts introduced an entire generation to classical music – he was a particular favorite of GREAT PERFORMANCES audiences. Beginning with the series’ first full season in 1973-74, when Mass became GP’s first music program, through 1988’s Bernstein at 70 from Tanglewood, he was never far from a series camera. More recently, his Candide in Concert was a highlight of the 2004-5 season.

Tilson Thomas, who also hosts Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2008: A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein, assumed his post as the 11th Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in 1995, consolidating a strong relationship with the orchestra that began some two decades earlier. In 1974, at age 29, he made his debut with the group leading Mahler’s Symphony No. 9. His tenure has been praised for innovative programming and for bringing the works of American composers to the fore, as well as attracting new audiences to Davies Symphony Hall. He last appeared on GREAT PERFORMANCES in 2004’s two-part examination and performance (with the SFS) of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, part of the orchestra’s groundbreaking PBS television series and multimedia project Keeping Score.

Now in its 97th season, the esteemed San Francisco Symphony includes among its music directors such distinguished conductors as Pierre Monteux, Seiji Ozawa, Edo de Waart, and Herbert Blomstedt.

Carnegie Hall Opening Night 2008: A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein inaugurates the hall’s 118th season and is a production of Carnegie Hall and Thirteen/WNET New York in association with San Francisco Symphony. Directed by Gary Halvorson, it is produced by John Walker and Mitch Owgang, with David Horn as Executive Producer.

GREAT PERFORMANCES is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS. Major funding for this telecast was provided by S. Donald Sussman, with additional special funding by The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund and the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

Joe Sinnott-Thirteen/WNET New York

“SOUTH PACIFIC” IN CONCERT FROM CARNEGIE HALL premiered on April 26, 2006 on PBS (check local listings).

Based on James Michener’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of short stories TALES OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning blockbuster was a landmark of post-World War II Broadway, a provocative romantic drama that beguiled audiences with a hit parade of instant standards. Last June, “South Pacific” reached new heights when, for one enchanted evening, Carnegie Hall presented a magnificent concert production with a dream cast headed by Reba McEntire, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Jason Danieley, Lillias White, and Alec Baldwin. Directed for the concert stage by Walter Bobbie, with musical director Paul Gemignani conducting the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the performance was acclaimed by THE NEW YORK TIMES as “a state of nearly unconditional rapture,” praising the production for locating “the show’s real staying power in its operatic respect for love as a force that hurts, teases, destroys and ennobles.”

“South Pacific” was among Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most successful and critically acclaimed shows, winning nine Tony Awards®, including Best Musical, in 1950. Although its first Broadway revival will not occur until the 2007-08 season (when it is presented by Lincoln Center Theater), “South Pacific” has lived on in thousands of productions, both professional and amateur, over the years, as well as in two movie versions.

Learn why “South Pacific” had to be a hit for the duo and the difficulties they encountered in presenting the controversial theme at the heart of the musical in the essay by contributor Thomas Hischak. See all the numbers from the musical in the song list, which includes links to video excerpts from the concert performance. Find photos from the original production in the Multimedia Presentation, and read an interview with musical theater star Brian Stokes Mitchell.

Special funding for the program was provided by The Rodgers Family Foundation and The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

Related Web Sites

• Carnegie Hall
• The Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization
  
• Reba McEntire
• Alec Baldwin
• Lillias White
• Jason Danieley

Still “doin’ fine” after 60 years, Rodgers & Hammerstein’s landmark American musical “Oklahoma!” is reborn in this film version of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain’s award-winning production. Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Susan Stroman, it set box office records during its run in London, and again on Broadway, with critics and audiences alike captivated by its fresh new take on a venerable classic. Luckily for television audiences, the magic of the original London cast was captured in a deluxe film adaptation just prior to the show’s move from the RNT to the West End; it includes a sensational, star-making performance by X-Man Hugh Jackman as Curly. Also featured are original cast members Josefina Gabrielle as Laurey, Maureen Lipman (THE PIANIST) as Aunt Eller, and 2002 Best Supporting Actor Tony winner Shuler Hensley as the menacing yet hauntingly sympathetic Jud Fry.

Special funding for this program was provided by Daimler-Chrysler and the Irene Diamond Fund.

Throughout a long golden era, the American movie musical transformed Hollywood into a Mecca for the biggest singing stars and leading songwriters of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. Hosted by Michael Feinstein, THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK offers a dazzling parade of American popular songs as seen and heard in some of the most beloved films ever made. With stars ranging from Al Jolson to Judy Garland to Frank Sinatra, and sounds from the Gilded Age to New Orleans jazz to Broadway musicals, THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK tells the story of the first 50 years of American popular music. Whether it was from the vaudeville stage or Tin Pan Alley, on the radio or the record player, it all found its way to the silver screen. This treasure trove of musical clips overflows with the very best of George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, and many more artists.

Additional funding for this program was provided by the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

Many local PBS stations are offering THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK videocassette, DVD, and its companion CD, SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW: THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD MUSICALS, as Pledge gifts. To order these items, pledge now. Or you may purchase the VHS or DVD of the program from Shop Thirteen.

The first Broadway revival in nearly 50 years of the musical comedy masterpiece by composer Cole Porter and authors Sam and Bella Spewack not only enchanted critics and delighted audiences, but also went on to triumph as one of the biggest prize-winners of the 2000 season. Taking its inspiration from Shakespeare, “Kiss Me, Kate” recounts the backstage and onstage antics of two feuding romantic couples during a touring production of “The Taming of the Shrew.” Sparkling with 18 classic Cole Porter songs — including “Another Op’nin’, Another Show,” “Wunderbar,” “So in Love,” “Always True to You in My Fashion,” “Too Darn Hot,” and “Brush Up Your Shakespeare” — “Kiss Me, Kate” epitomizes the Broadway musical comedy at its irresistible best. Directed by Michael Blakemore, this 2000 Tony-winner for Best Revival stars Brent Barrett, Rachel York, Nancy Anderson, and Michael Berresse as the bickering couples whose offstage disputes ultimately entangle them with a pair of unexpectedly erudite gangsters and a megalomaniacal U.S. Army general.

Cole Porter’s most successful musical, the original production of “Kiss Me, Kate” opened on Broadway at the New Century Theatre on December 30, 1948 and ran for 1,077 performances. It garnered five Tony Awards in 1949, the same number the revival claimed in 2000. Learn more about the revival, which was taped during its run at London’s Victoria Palace Theatre, and its celebrated director, Michael Blakemore, in an essay by writer Michael Coveney. Read an extensive biography of Cole Porter as well as many other American composers and songwriters whose music is featured this season on GREAT PERFORMANCES in the Encyclopedia of Composers & Songwriters; browse the Q&A with Professor Thomas Hischak, author of numerous books on American film and stage musicals, in Ask the Expert; and watch extended video excerpts from the program in the Video Jukebox. Lastly, see the complete list of songs and photos from the production in the “Kiss Me, Kate” Slideshow.

Special funding for this program was provided by the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust and the Irene Diamond Fund.

The “KISS ME, KATE” DVD can be purchased from Shop Thirteen.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s enduringly popular musical favorite “Joseph and the Amazing Techincolor Dreamcoat” comes to television in a production starring Donny Osmond, Maria Friedman, Richard Attenborough, and Joan Collins. Beginning its life in 1967 as a 20-minute “pop cantata” for a school Easter concert, “Joseph” was revived and expanded in the mid-’70s and eventually made its way to Broadway in 1982. This lively interpretation of the biblical story of Joseph of Canaan has gone on to charm audiences around the world with its excitement, energy, and eclectic musical variety.