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

From London’s beautifully refurbished Covent Garden Opera House comes this elegant new production with one of Tchaikovsky’s most enduring scores for the ballet. Generations of audiences have enjoyed this perennial Christmas favorite, a charming tale of holiday adventure that follows a little girl’s journey through a fantasy world of fairies, princes, toy soldiers, and an army of mice. Revised by Sir Peter Wright with sets designed by Julia Trevelyan Oman, the new Royal Ballet production features an acclaimed cast, including Ivan Putrov as the Nutcracker, Alina Cojocaru as Clara, Miyako Yoshida as the Sugar Plum Fairy, and Sir Anthony Dowell as the toy- and clockmaker Herr Drosselmeyer. Conductor Evgenii Svetlanov leads the Royal Opera Orchestra through some of Tchaikovsky’s most beloved music, including “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” and “Waltz of the Snowflakes.”

The two-act ballet had its premiere at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on December 17, 1892. It was based on Alexander Dumas père’s THE NUTCRACKER OF NUREMBERG, which was an adaptation of an earlier story by E.T.A. Hoffmann called THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING. Read a synopsis of “The Nutcracker” to become more familiar with the holiday classic. You can also print a set and a variety of character cutouts from “The Nutcracker,” which can then be colored and assembled in order to stage your own version of the ballet.

Related Web Sites

• The Royal Ballet

• The Nutcracker Ballet

• NPR: The Enduring Spirit of the Nutcracker

• Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky

Watch a preview of the concert:

The My Christmas concert is the ultimate holiday musical experience from Andrea Bocelli, showcasing the tenor in performances of traditional carols and other favorites in English, with a few additional selections in Italian and German. Regarding Christmas music, the star remarks, “I have long dreamed of recording a holiday album that captures the beautiful traditions of the holiday season. Every year, these songs have brought incredible joy to me and my family, and it is my hope to give back that same joy by making this album.” Of her experience singing Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” with Bocelli during the taping, country music star Reba McEntire told the Toronto Sun, “I sat there in awe. I just loved it. (His voice) is rich like frosting on a cake – decadent. It’s so full. I stood there right beside him and just watched him.”

An iconic figure in music who has sold more than 60 million albums to date, Bocelli continues to defy categorization, age barriers and labels of any kind. In concert or on the opera stage, he has sung with everyone from Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo to Bono and Celine Dion. In addition to his solo Great Performances concert programs, Bocelli’s many memorable television appearances include the Oscar and Grammy Awards telecasts, mentoring contestants on American Idol and performances at the Official Ceremonies of the Olympic Games, all of which have propelled Andrea Bocelli into becoming a global household name in contemporary popular music.

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.

So it was reported by Reuters news agency a day after the historic event which saw the tenor following in the distinguished footsteps of opera superstars Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo, both of whom have given memorable Central Park performances.

Andrea Bocelli Live in Central Park airs on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances, Friday December 2 at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings). Accompanied by the New York Philharmonic, under the direction of music director Alan Gilbert, the spectacular event was Bocelli’s special gift to New York City. The program is the New York-based offering of the multi-city PBS Arts Fall Festival, which includes four Great Performances productions. Award-winning journalist Paula Zahn is the evening’s host.

Watch a preview:

Widely regarded as the most popular Italian tenor in the world with more than 70 million albums sold, Bocelli was joined that rainy, windswept evening by pop stars Céline Dion, Tony Bennett, Chris Botti and David Foster, and from the classical world, bass baritone Bryn Terfel, sopranos Ana María Martínez and Pretty Yende, and violinist Nicola Benedetti, along with the Westminster Symphonic Choir, under the direction of Joe Miller. Bocelli presented a varied repertoire that includes well known arias, fan favorites, and some new surprises.

Since Great Performances introduced American television audiences to Bocelli with 1997’s Romanza concert, Bocelli has been featured in a notable series of Great Performances specials, including Sacred Arias, Amore, Vivere, My Christmas and American Dream, his spectacular “Statue of Liberty” concert from New Jersey’s Liberty State Park.

The night began promisingly as the setting sun cast a golden glow on the New York skyline, but as Maestro Gilbert struck up the portentous strains of Verdi’s La Forza del Destino overture, a light but steady rain fell over the crowd of some tens of thousands of New Yorkers, and those who had come much farther, to see him. Though umbrellas were raised, and a chilly wind began to blow, fans were swept up in the beauty of the music and the presence of their idol. “In spite of the rain and cold, you are heroes,” Bocelli assured the adoring crowd.

The first act of stirring operatic selections including Verdi and Puccini favorites gave way to more popular fare in the second including duets with Celine Dion and Tony Bennett.

The program:

La Forza del Destino Ouverture
Alan Gilbert, New York Philharmonic

“La donna ė mobile” (Rigoletto)
Andrea Bocelli

“Di quella pira” (Il Trovatore)
Andrea Bocelli

“Va Tosca! (Te Deum)” (Tosca)
Bryn Terfel, Choir

“Ave Maria ‘Ellens dritter Gesang’”
Andrea Bocelli

“Vicino a te s’acqueta” (Andrea Chenier)
Andrea Bocelli, Ana Maria Martinez

“Au fond du temple saint” (Les Pêcheurs de Perles)
Andrea Bocelli, Bryn Terfel

“O Soave Fanciulla” (La Bohème)
Andrea Bocelli, Pretty Yende

“Libiano ne’lieti calici” (La Traviata)
Andrea Bocelli, Pretty Yende, Choir

“Home on the Range”
Bryn Terfel, Choir

“En Aranjuez con tu amor”
Andrea Bocelli, Nicola Benedetti (violin)

“’O Sole Mio”
Andrea Bocelli, Choir

“Once Upon a Time in the West”
Andrea Bocelli

Andrea Bocelli, David Foster, Chris Botti (trumpet)

“Volare”
Andrea Bocelli, David Foster

“The Prayer”
Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, David Foster

“New York, New York”
Andrea Bocelli, Tony Bennett

“Amazing Grace”
Andrea Bocelli, Choir

“Time to Say Goodbye”
Andrea Bocelli, Ana Maria Martinez, Choir

“Nessun Dorma” (Turandot) (encore)
Andrea Bocelli, Choir

Bocelli’s performance was the latest in a rich tradition of memorable free concerts in Central Park which, over the years, has included such notable performers as Barbra Streisand, Simon and Garfunkel, Diana Ross, Garth Brooks, Bob Marley and the Wailers, and Bon Jovi.

Before the concert, Bocelli nostalgically reflected, “I cannot help but smile when thinking about the upcoming concert in Central Park. It was my father’s dream, and my father was right, because my artistic path would have been entirely different without the strong and sincere embrace of this extraordinary city where everything is possible, even when it seems impossible. My father will not be there, but I can count on his blessing and his kind and gentle smile to give me courage. My mother, sitting in the front row, will feel my father, too, and they will be together again just like when I was a little boy performing on the fireplace steps. Perhaps they had secretly dreamed that I might have the opportunity to perform in New York City, and maybe right here in Central Park.”

Concerto: One Night In Central Park will also be released on CD , DVD and CD+DVD by Sugar/Decca on November 14th.

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET New York Public Media, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. For nearly 50 years, WNET has been producing and broadcasting national and local arts programming to the New York community.

Andrea Bocelli Live in Central Park is directed by David Horn. For Great Performances, Mitch Owgang and Andrea Cotromano are producers; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn and Filippo Sugar are executive producers.

Barilla is the main sponsor of the concert event and the television broadcast. Major funding for the Great Performances telecast is provided by Vivian Milstein, the Starr Foundation, the Irene Diamond Fund, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, Joseph A. Wilson, public television viewers, and PBS.

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.

Called “the most exciting individual in American theater” by Newsweek magazine, Smith (Fires in the Mirror, Twilight: Los Angeles) turns on this occasion to matters of the human body: the healthcare system, and the resilience of the spirit.

In her signature style of interviewing an eclectic range of people (for Let Me Down Easy, over 300 on three continents), then performing as the interviewee in their own words, Smith creates an indelible gallery of 20 portraits, from a rodeo bull rider to a New Orleans doctor, as well as boldface names like former Texas Governor Ann Richards, legendary cyclist Lance Armstrong, and former supermodel Lauren Hutton.

Anna Deavere Smith

Let Me Down Easy was inspired by work she did at Yale School of Medicine, where she was visiting professor. Bill Moyers dedicated a full hour segment to profiling Ms. Smith and Let Me Down Easy.

NBC’s Today raved, “Run – do not walk – to see this play! Watching Anna Deavere Smith on stage is magical. One minute you are laughing, the next you are crying. It is truly brilliant and stunning.” Variety heralded the work as “a totally vital piece of theater, mixing a standup comic’s instincts with a great reporter’s keen eye.”  It was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top 10 of 2009.

It has been said that Smith created a new form of theater. When granted the prestigious MacArthur Award, her work was described as “a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate reverie.” She has performed in film and TV as well as on stage. She currently plays Gloria Akalitus on Showtime’s hit series Nurse Jackie. She’s probably most recognizable in popular culture as Nancy McNally, national security advisor on NBC’s former hit The West Wing.

Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles played around the U.S. and on Broadway. It received two Tony nominations, an Obie, Drama Desk Award, the New York Drama Critics Circle’s Special Citation and numerous other honors.

She produced, wrote and performed the film version of Twilight for PBS. Another of her plays, Fires in the Mirror, examined a race riot in Crown Heights, Brooklyn (1991), when racial tensions between black and Jewish neighbors exploded. It received an Obie Award, numerous other awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She performed the play around the U.S., in London and in Australia. The film version was also broadcast on PBS. 

Let Me Down Easy – helmed by theater and opera director Leonard Foglia — will be taped during its run in Arena Stage’s Kreeger Theater in Washington, D.C. It will be directed for television by veteran Matthew Diamond (Cyrano de Bergerac, From Broadway: Fosse, Swan Lake with American Ballet Theatre, all for Great Performances, and was nominated for an Oscar for the 1999 documentary Dancemaker).

After its Arena Stage run, the production will embark on a tour to include The Wexner Center for the Arts; Philadelphia Theatre Company; a collaborative presentation of  San Diego REPertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and the Vantage Theatre; and Berkeley Repertory Theatre.

Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Irene Diamond Fund, the Starr Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation and Joseph A. Wilson, with additional major support from the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust.

For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell and Mitch Owgang are producers; O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

Paul Crowder’s film, Last Play at Shea, a documentary about those concerts, which intertwined the history of the stadium and the New York Mets with Joel’s New York-centric biography, received accolades when it premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival last October. Stephen Holden of The New York Times dubbed it “exhilarating,” noting of Joel’s musical selections, “His blunt, irresistibly tuneful songs, however autobiographical, are also nuggets of American cultural history.”

Now, those songs, mostly heard in fragmentary form in the documentary, are performed in full in Billy Joel: Live at Shea Stadium, which comes to PBS in March on Great Performances. (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the program Monday, March 7 at 8 p.m. ET, for other markets check local listings)

Watch a preview:

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.

Joel and his band offer definitive and often transcendent versions of hits, rarities, personal favorites and crowd-pleasing surprises, including duets with guests McCartney (“I Saw Her Standing There,” “Let it Be”), Bennett (“New York State of Mind”), and Brooks (“Shameless”).

Built in 1964, Shea Stadium was the home of the New York Mets for 45 years. Designed as a multi-purpose stadium, Shea became the birthplace of arena rock when the Beatles appeared there on August 15, 1965, establishing the ballpark as a pinnacle venue for rock’s biggest names. The Who, The Police, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and others have all played Shea.

Chosen as the last rock act to play the venue, Billy Joel staged his “Last Play at Shea” concerts on July 16 and July 18, 2008, rocking a combined audience of 110,000 fans with one of the most emotionally charged shows ever played at the historic stadium. After 45 years, two New York Mets World Series victories, the arena debut of The Beatles and Billy Joel’s “Last Play At Shea,” the final section of Shea Stadium was torn down in 2009.

Songs
Angry Young Man
My Life
Always a Woman
New York State of Mind (with Tony Bennett)
Allentown
Shameless (with Garth Brooks)
River of Dreams/Hard Days Night
We Didn’t Start the Fire
Captain Jack
Goodnight Saigon
I Saw Her Standing There (Paul McCartney)
Italian Restaurant
Take Me Out to the Ball Game/Piano Man
Let it Be (Paul McCartney)

The concert will be released a CD/DVD set as well as a stand-alone DVD and stand-alone Blu-ray disc by Sony Music on March 8.

It was co-produced (with Steve Cohen) and directed for television by Jon Small, and edited by Laura Young. Executive producers: David Horn and Todd Kamelhar. For Great Performances, Cara Cosentino is producer; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

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

Carnegie Hall 120th Anniversary Concert — featuring the works of Ludwig von Beethoven, Duke Ellington, Antonin Dvořák, and George Gershwin — will air as part of Great Performances on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 from 8-9:30 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media partners.

The eclectic, crowd-pleasing program is set to include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56, performed by Ax, Ma, and Shaham, a selection of Duke Ellington songs – including “Solitude,” “Sophisticated Lady,” “On a Turquoise Cloud,” and “It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing” — performed by McDonald, and full performances of Antonin Dvořák’s Carnival Overture and George Gershwin’s An American in Paris.

Dvořák conducted his Carnival Overture with the Boston Symphony at Carnegie Hall when he came to New York to assume his post as director of the National Conservatory of Music on October 21, 1892.

Gershwin’s An American in Paris was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, and conducted by Walter Damrosch in the New York premiere on December 13, 1928 at Carnegie Hall. (The concert hall was the home base of the New York Philharmonic until the orchestra moved to its current location at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in 1962.)

Ellington played his first historic Carnegie Hall concert on January 23, 1943, beginning an extraordinary series of concerts there of his long-form works.

In the late 1800’s, New York City was emerging as an international capital, and composers were flourishing in the classical world. In 1891, Carnegie Hall, founded by industrialist and entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie, opened its doors as simply “Music Hall” on May 5, 1891 with none other than Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky conducting. It was renamed “Carnegie Hall” in 1893 when Carnegie allowed the use of his name and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1962.

Carnegie Hall 120th Anniversary Concert is a co-production of Carnegie Hall and THIRTEEN for WNET.  For Great Performances, John Walker, Cara Cosentino, and Mitch Owgang are producers; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; and David Horn is executive producer. It will be directed for television by Brian Large.

Major funding for the Great Performances telecast is provided by The National Endowment for the Arts, The Anna Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, the Arlene and Milton D. Berkman Philanthropic Fund, The Lillian Goldman Programming Endowment, Victor and Sono Elmaleh, Vivian Milstein, the Starr Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and Joseph A. Wilson, with additional funding in memory of Virginia and Leonard Marx.

The television broadcast of this concert is supported by S. Donald Sussman, with additional support to Carnegie Hall from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Watch a preview:

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.

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

Flórez and Dudamel, close friends off the concert stage, developed the special lineup of bel canto arias and popular Latin American canciones by Rossini, Granda, Lara, Moncayo, Grever, Gutiérrez and Márquez for Celebración! Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil with Juan Diego Flórez. The program will air Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).

Watch a preview:

In describing the conductor’s interpretation of Rossini’s “Semiramide” overture, critic Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times enthused, “Dudamel rode Rossini’s crescendos like a surfer on an epic wave, sending nature’s power into to the concert hall. He brought out wonderful instrumental details. The orchestra sparkled.”

The full program is slated to include:

ROSSINI Overture to La gazza ladra
ROSSINI “Principe più non se” from La Cenerentola
ROSSINI Overture to Semiramide
ROSSINI “La speranza più soave” from Semiramide
GRANDA (arr. Flórez) La flor de la canela
LARA (arr. Hayes) Granada
MONCAYO Huapango
GREVER (arr. Guinovart) Júrame
GUTIÉRREZ (arr. Pena) Alma llanera
MÁRQUEZ Danzón No. 2

As a bonus, viewers will also hear Flórez bring down the house all over again with two brilliant encores: “Ah! Mes Amis” from Donizetti’s “The Daughter of the Regiment” and “La Donna è Mobile” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto.”

The evening marks the beginning of Dudamel’s second season as the Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director. Acclaimed worldwide as an exciting and compelling maestro, Dudamel began his tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Fall 2009, while continuing as Music Director of the Gothenburg Symphony in Sweden. Dudamel also enters his eleventh year as Music Director of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela.

On October 8, 2009, Dudamel led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the inaugural gala at Walt Disney Concert Hall. This concert was also telecast on PBS’s Great Performances.

Dudamel was born in 1981 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. In 1996, he was named Music Director of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. In 1999, he assumed the Music Director position of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra. Gustavo Dudamel was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2009 by TIME magazine and has been featured three times on CBS’ 60 Minutes.

Flórez’s virtuosic bel canto tenor voice makes him an ideal interpreter of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini and much sought after by the world’s leading opera houses. His performances in opera as well as in concert have won him acclaim by the public and critics alike.

Born in Lima, Peru, he made his official debut at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro (Italy) in 1996, substituting for the leading tenor who fell ill. He was considered an overnight sensation, drawing attention from theaters like La Scala, where he made his debut that same year, at the age of only 23.

Flórez, who is making his debut in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, has enjoyed great success at theaters such as the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House (Covent Garden), Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Teatro Real in Madrid, Gran Teatro Liceo in Barcelona, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Zurich Opera, Deutsche Oper in Berlin, and the Salzburg Festival.

He has recorded numerous solo CD’s and complete operas on CD and DVD, and received many prizes and decorations. In 2004 he was decorated with the “Orden al Merito” (Order of Merit) in the rank of “Gran Cruz” (Great Cross), and in 2007 with the “Orden El Sol del Perú” (The Sun of Peru Order) in the rank of “Gran Cruz” (Great Cross), the highest decoration from the Peruvian government.

Mendes first captured the attention of moviegoers in a small, but pivotal part in the critically acclaimed film, “Training Day.” Since then, she has had notable roles in “Stuck on You,” “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” “Hitch,” “Ghost Rider,” “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans,” “We Own the Night,” and “The Spirit.”

Celebración! Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil with Juan Diego Flórez was recorded for telecast by Bernhard Fleischer Moving Images, THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG, 3sat, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Irene Diamond Fund, the Starr Foundation, public television viewers, and PBS. Major support for the telecast is also provided by The Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust and Jody and John Arnhold. For Great Performances, John Walker and Cara Cosentino are producers; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

The full song list:

ROSSINI Overture to La gazza ladra
ROSSINI “Principe più non se” from La Cenerentola
ROSSINI Overture to Semiramide
ROSSINI “La speranza più soave” from Semiramide
GRANDA (arr. Flórez) La flor de la canela
LARA (arr. Hayes) Granada
MONCAYO Huapango
GREVER (arr. Guinovart)Júrame
GUTIÉRREZ (arr. Pena)Alma llanera
MÁRQUEZ Danzón No. 2