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The program was originally seen live in movie theaters on January 21 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1700 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 54 countries around the world.

Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN for WNET, 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.

Devised and written by the acclaimed British theater artist Jeremy Sams in his Met debut, The Enchanted Island is conducted by renowned Baroque specialist William Christie and seen in a fantastical production by director Phelim McDermott and scenic designer Julian Crouch that blends 18^th-century theatrical techniques with advanced video projection designs.

The Enchanted Island is a contemporary take on the 18^th-century tradition of operatic “pasticcios” (pastiches), in which new librettos were combined with music from various compositions to create entirely new theatrical pieces. The tradition was particularly popular in London, where Handel was a prominent practitioner. The score for The Enchanted Island comprises selections from a variety of Baroque operas, cantatas, and oratorios, many of which are rarely performed in contemporary opera houses.

DiDonato stars as the sorceress Sycorax and Daniels is her supernatural foe, the sorcerer Prospero; Domingo is Neptune, god of the seas; de Niese is the air spirit Ariel; Lisette Oropesa is Prospero’s daughter Miranda; Anthony Roth Costanzo is the shipwrecked prince Ferdinand; and Pisaroni is Sycorax’s monstrous son Caliban.

The score includes music from many Handel works, including operas (e.g. Alcina, Ariodante, Partenope, and Semele, Tamerlano, and Teseo); oratorios (Hercules and Judas Maccabaeus); and cantatas (e.g. “Tanti strali al sen mi scocchi” and “Notte placida e cheta”); and more. The other works represented in The Enchanted Island are by Vivaldi, Rameau, Ferrandini, Campra, Purcell, Rebel, and Leclair.

Sams, a noted stage director, writer, translator, composer, and lyricist, has created an English-language libretto for The Enchanted Island that combines the plots of two Shakespeare plays. In Sams’s story, the bitter supernatural war between The Tempest’s Prospero and his nemesis, the sorceress Sycorax, is interrupted by a quartet of unexpected island visitors: the four lovers from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, whose honeymoon cruise has ended in a shipwreck. The ensuing conflicts and romantic entanglements also involve Prospero’s daughter Miranda, Sycorax’s grotesque son Caliban, the shipwrecked prince Ferdinand, the air spirit Ariel, and Neptune, king of the undersea world.

Renowned Baroque specialist Christie made his Met debut last season leading Mozart’s Così fan tutte. His adventurous explorations into the Baroque repertory, particularly with his ensemble Les Arts Florissants, have earned him an international reputation as a consummate musician and historian.

DiDonato’s most recent Met appearances were as the Composer in last season’s revival of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos and as Isolier in the Met premiere of Le Comte Ory. Daniels’s Met starring roles have included Orfeo in the new production of Orfeo ed Euridice (2007 and 2011), Bertarido in the Met premiere of Handel’s Rodelinda (2004), both Sesto and the title character in Handel’s Giulio Cesare, and Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Since his debut in 1968, Domingo has sung more than 600 Met performances in an ever-expanding repertory.

De Niese, a frequent collaborator with Maestro Christie, made her Met debut as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro in 1999. Earlier this season, Pisaroni sang Leporello in the new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Oropesa’s Met appearances have included Lisette in the new production of Puccini’s La Rondine (2008), Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Amore in Orfeo ed Euridice, and the Rhinemaiden Woglinde in the 2010 new production of Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Costanzo, a 2009 National Council Grand Finals winner, makes his Met debut this season as Unulfo in Rodelinda.

The four Midsummer lovers are sung by Layla Claire (Hermia), Elizabeth DeShong (Helena), Paul Appleby (Demetrius), and Elliot Madore (Lysander, in his Met debut).

The New York Times dubbed the work, at its premiere, “fanciful, clever, and touching,” while Associated Press found it “irresistibly entertaining…with enough fizz to send a dozen champagne corks popping.”

Soprano Deborah Voigt hosts. Barbara Willis Sweete directs the telecast.

Great Performances is funded by Vivian Milstein, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and Annaliese Soros. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®.

Visit Great Performances online at www.pbs.org/gperf for additional information on this and other Great Performances programs.

For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

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The program was originally seen live in movie theaters on December 10 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1700 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 54 countries around the world.

Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN for WNET, 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.

Kaufmann makes his Met role debut as the title character, and Poplavskaya makes hers as Faust’s love interest and eventual victim, Marguerite; Pape returns to one of his greatest Met roles, the wicked tempter Méphistophélès. French-Canadian mezzo-soprano Michèle Losier makes her house role debut as the student Siébel and Russell Braun makes his in the role of Marguerite’s soldier brother, Valentin.

McAnuff is a Tony Award winner for Big River and The Who’s Tommy and the Artistic Director of Canada’s prestigious Stratford Shakespeare Festival. His production of Faust, a co-production with the English National Opera, where it premiered last season, sets the action in the mid-20^th century, with Faust as a nuclear scientist who sees the terrible effects of his life’s work and longs to return to a simpler time. The main part of the opera takes place in a flashback to an earlier part of the 20^th century, with the plot unfolding in the moments before Faust dies from drinking a fatal potion.

Gounod’s opera has been a staple of the Met’s repertory since 1883, when it was the first opera ever presented at the old Metropolitan Opera House.

When this production premiered last November, Associated Press enthused: “Exceptional work by a fine cast of singing actors led by tenor Jonas Kaufmann, soprano Marina Poplavskaya and bass René Pape…their performances, sharply directed by Des McAnuff, guaranteed that Gounod’s opera came across as serious and even gripping theater. And rarely has the score sounded more captivating than in the rhapsodic account by the Met orchestra under the guidance of the young conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.”

Nézet-Séguin, the Music Director Designate of the Philadelphia Orchestra, had two previous Met engagements: the new productions of Bizet’s Carmen (2009) and Verdi’s Don Carlo (2010), both broadcast on Great Performances at the Met. Kaufmann is currently one of the world’s most in-demand tenors, starring in a varied repertory that has included Met performances of Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre (2011 new production), Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca, Don José in Carmen, Alfredo in Verdi’s La Traviata, and Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. In October, he became the first Met artist since Luciano Pavarotti (in 1984) to sing a solo recital from the Met stage, and this spring, he will reprise his Siegmund in complete Ring cycles.

Last season, Poplavskaya received critical praise for her singing and acting in two Met role debuts. She sang Elisabeth de Valois in the new production of Don Carlo, also seen on Great Performances at the Met, and she also starred as Violetta in Willy Decker’s staging of La Traviata. Pape, whose last Met engagement was as King Philip to Poplavskaya’s Elisabeth on the Japan tour, sang Méphistophélès in the Met’s 2004-05 season. Last season, he starred in the title role of a new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (seen on Great Performances at the Met).

McAnuff’s design team for Faust includes two Tony nominees in their Met debuts: scenic designer Robert Brill and costume designer Paul Tazewell. Peter Mumford, whose work at the Met includes Madama Butterfly, Carmen, and Peter Grimes, designed the lighting for the production. Choreographer Kelly Devine and video designer Sean Nieuwenhuis also made their Met debuts with this production.

Mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato hosts. Barbara Willis Sweete directs the telecast.

Major funding for the telecast is provided by M. Beverly and Robert G. Bartner.  Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation.

For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

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Rodelinda also stars Andreas Scholl as the exiled king Bertarido and Stephanie Blythe as his sister Eduige. English countertenor Iestyn Davies makes his Met debut as Bertarido’s faithful friend Unulfo, and, in Met role debuts, Joseph Kaiser sings the usurper Grimoaldo and Shenyang the corrupt royal advisor Garibaldo.

The program was originally seen live in movie theaters on December 3 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1700 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 54 countries around the world.

Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN for WNET, 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.

Handel’s opera, based on the life of a seventh-century queen of Lombardy, premiered at the Met in 2004 with Fleming in the title role. The opera, in which Rodelinda’s love for her exiled husband remains steadfast despite the romantic and political machinations of his enemies, is a showcase for some of Handel’s most extraordinary arias and duets.

Bicket made his Met debut leading the new production premiere of Rodelinda in 2004, and has since conducted Met revivals of Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito. He is also the director of The English Concert, a Baroque orchestra that uses period instruments and tours throughout the United Kingdom and the United States. Wadsworth, whose staging of the opera has been praised for its clarity and fluidity, has also directed new productions of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride at the Met, as well as a new staging of Smetana’s The Bartered Bride, co-produced with The Juilliard School.

Rodelinda is the sole Baroque heroine in Fleming’s extensive Met repertory of twenty-one roles. Her recent Met performances include the Countess in the first-ever Met revival of Strauss’s Capriccio; the title character in the Met premiere of Rossini’s Armida; the Marschallin in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier; and the title characters in Massenet’s Thaïs and Dvořák’s Rusalka.

Blythe, like Fleming, starred in Rodelinda’s Met premiere and a subsequent revival in the 2005-06 season. Scholl made his Met debut as Bertarido in the 2006 revival of Rodelinda, and also starred in a high-profile 1998 Glyndebourne production of the opera, conducted by William Christie.

Davies is a prominent performer in recital and opera in his native England, specializing in the Baroque repertory. Kaiser co-starred with Fleming last season as Flamand in Strauss’s Capriccio. Shenyang has appeared at the Met as Colline in Puccini’s La Bohème and Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

Soprano Deborah Voigt hosts. Matthew Diamond directs the telecast.

This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation. Major support for the Rodelinda telecast is provided by Mr. and Mrs. Wilmer J. Thomas, Jr. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®.

For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

To mark the musical’s Silver Anniversary, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Cameron Mackintosh presented “The Phantom of the Opera” in the sumptuous Victorian splendor of London’s Royal Albert Hall. International audiences were invited to join the celebration when the evening was transmitted live to cinemas worldwide. This dazzling restaging of the original production recreates the jaw-dropping scenery and breathtaking special effects of the original, set to Lloyd Webber’s haunting score.

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The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall stars Ramin Karimloo as The Phantom and Sierra Boggess as Christine. Both had triumphed in the London premiere of “Love Never Dies,” Lloyd Webber’s sequel to “The Phantom of the Opera,” both earning prestigious Olivier Award nominations for their roles.

Karimloo and Boggess are joined by Barry James as Monsieur Firmin, Gareth Snook as Monsieur André, Liz Robertson as Madame Giry and Wynne Evans as Piangi, together with a cast and orchestra of more than 200 including special guest appearances by the original Phantom and Christine, Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman. Illustrious past Phantoms Peter Jöback, John Owen-Jones, Anthony Warlow, and Colm Wilkinson join forces for a powerful “Music of the Night,” all introduced by a beaming Lloyd Webber. Besides that hit tune, the show contains such favorites as “All I Ask of You,” “Think of Me,” “Prima Donna,” “Masquerade” and “Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again.”

Lloyd Webber’s “The Phantom of the Opera” first opened in 1986 at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London and is based on the French novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra by Gaston Leroux. Set against the glamor and spectacle of the Paris Opera House, Leroux told of a horribly disfigured Phantom, once a promising musician, who now terrorizes the opera company. Shamed by his physical appearance and feared by all, the Phantom is drawn to the beautiful ingénue Christine Daaé and begins coaching her secretly, as a tragic romance unfolds between the unlikely pair.

Worldwide, “The Phantom of the Opera” has grossed over $5.6 billion. It has been seen in 145 cities in 27 countries and played to more than 130 million people. The show has won more than 50 major theatre awards, including seven Tony® and three Olivier® Awards in the West End. It is currently showing in London, New York, Budapest, Las Vegas and Kyoto. In 2006, it became Broadway’s longest running show ever.

Cast:

Ramin Karimloo … The Phantom
Sierra Boggess … Christine
Hadley Fraser … Raoul
Wendy Ferguson … Carlotta Guidicelli
Barry James … Monsieur Firmin
Gareth Snook … Monsieur André
Liz Robertson … Madame Giry
Wynne Evans … Ubaldo Piangi
Sergei Polunin … Slave Master – Hannibal / Shepherd – Il Muto
Daisy Maywood … Meg Giry
Nick Holder … Joseph Buquet
Earl Carpenter … Auctioneer
Philip Griffiths… Monsieur Reyer
Simon Green … Monsieur Lefevre
Stephen Davis … Don Attilio (”Il Muto”)
Garðar Cortes … Passarino (”Don Juan Triumphant”)
Heather Jackson … Madame Firmin
Ellen Jackson … Wardrobe Mistress
Rosemary Ashe… Confidante (”Il Muto”)

The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall was directed by Laurence Connor with musical staging and choreography by Gillian Lynne, based on the original London Production Directed by Hal Prince with Musical Staging and Choreography by Gillian Lynne. The Royal Albert Hall was transformed with a spectacular and unique design by Matt Kinley inspired by Maria Björnson’s original design. Lighting was by Patrick Woodroffe and Andrew Bridge and Sound by Mick Potter. The production was produced by Cameron Mackintosh.

The Phantom of the Opera at the Royal Albert Hall was directed for television by Nick Morris.

The fully-staged production will be released on Blu-ray™, DVD and On Demand by Universal Studios Home Entertainment on February 7.

THIRTEEN’s Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, 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.

For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer. Great Performances is funded by Vivian Milstein, The Starr Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Joseph A. Wilson, public television viewers, and PBS.

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The program was originally seen live in movie theaters on October 29, 2011 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1700 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 54 countries around the world.

Great Performances at the Met is a presentation of THIRTEEN for WNET, 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.

The classic tale of lust, heartbreak, and revenge stars charismatic Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien in his first-ever Met performances of the notorious title character. For the first time with Don Giovanni at the Met, Luisi conducts the performance from a cembalo in the orchestra pit.

Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka and German soprano Mojca Erdmann make their Met debuts as two of Giovanni’s female conquests, Donna Anna and Zerlina, opposite distinguished Mozartean Barbara Frittoli as the fiery Donna Elvira. Tenor Ramón Vargas sings the role of Donna Anna’s fiancé, the nobleman Don Ottavio, and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni is Giovanni’s hapless manservant Leporello. Joshua Bloom sings the shepherd Masetto and Štefan Kocán is the vengeful Commendatore.

Grandage, the longtime artistic director of London’s Donmar Warehouse, won a 2010 Tony Award for directing John Logan’s drama Red. Last season, he directed new productions of Billy Budd at Glyndebourne and Madama Butterfly at Houston Grand Opera. His other Broadway credits include Peter Morgan’s docudrama Frost/Nixon, a 2009 staging of Hamlet starring Jude Law, and an upcoming revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita in spring 2012.

Grandage’s design team includes his longtime collaborator Christopher Oram (sets and costumes), also a recent Tony Award winner for Red; lighting designer Paule Constable, who also designed this season’s Anna Bolena and Satyagraha; and choreographer Ben Wright, whose credits include numerous operas and musicals in England and Scotland. Oram and Wright make their Met debuts with this production.

Luisi, who was elevated to the position of Principal Conductor in September, led performances of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in the Met’s 2009-10 season and has a Met repertory that includes critically acclaimed performances of Verdi’s Don Carlo, Rigoletto, and Simon Boccanegra; Puccini’s La Bohème, Tosca, and Turandot; Richard Strauss’s Die Ägyptische Helena (the 2007 new production premiere), Elektra, and Ariadne auf Naxos; Berg’s Lulu; and Wagner’s Das Rheingold. He is also conducting Wagner’s Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, Massenet’s Manon, as well as a revival of Verdi’s La Traviata, all coming up on Great Performances at the Met.

Kwiecien has sung Don Giovanni at numerous international opera houses, including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Munich State Opera; San Francisco Opera; Santa Fe Opera; and Warsaw Opera, earning praise for his accomplished vocalism and seductive interpretation. Don Giovanni is his fourth leading role in a new production at the Met, following his performances as Dr. Malatesta in Don Pasquale (2006), and Enrico in Lucia di Lammermoor (2007), all seen on Great Performances at the Met, as well as Escamillo in Carmen (2009).

Rebeka sang the role of Donna Anna last season at the Deutsche Oper Berlin under the baton of Roberto Abbado. Fellow debuting artist Erdmann sang Zerlina at the 2011 Baden-Baden Festival in a production conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Frittoli last sang Donna Elvira at the Met in the 2008-09 season.

Vargas makes his Met role debut as Don Ottavio, a role he last performed in Covent Garden’s 2008-09 season. Bloom made his Met debut as Masetto in the 2008-09 season. Slovakian bass Kocán will make his Met role debut as the Commendatore.

Renée Fleming hosts. Barbara Willis Sweete directs the telecast.

Great Performances is funded by Vivian Milstein, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and Annaliese Soros. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®.

For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

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Charles Isherwood of The New York Times observed, “[Composer] David Bryan evokes the powerhouse funk of James Brown, the hot guitar riffs of Chuck Berry, the smooth harmonies of the Temptations, the silken, bouncy pop of the great girl groups of the period.” The New York Post raved “Of such thrills, Broadway is made.” The Associated Press called Memphis “The very essence of what a Broadway musical should be.”

Memphis takes place in the smoky halls and underground clubs of the segregated 50’s, where a young white DJ named Huey Calhoun (Kimball) falls in love with everything he shouldn’t: rock and roll and an electrifying black singer Felicia Farrell (Glover). Memphis is an original story about the cultural revolution that erupted when his vision met her voice, and the music changed forever.

Filled with high-octane dancing, songs that perfectly capture the era, and an absorbing tale of fame and forbidden love, the show offers soaring emotion and roof-raising rock ‘n’ roll.

The show’s Tony®-winning original score features music by Bon Jovi’s founding member and keyboardist David Bryan and lyrics by Bryan and Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change), who also pens the musical’s book. . The show is based on a concept by the late George W. George (producer of the Tony nominated Bedroom Farce and the film My Dinner With Andre), with direction by Tony nominee Christopher Ashley (Xanadu) and choreography by Sergio Trujillo, (Jersey Boys, Next to Normal).

The critically acclaimed production of Memphis won a total of four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score (David Bryan and Joe DiPietro), Best Book (Joe DiPietro), and Best Orchestrations (David Bryan and Daryl Waters). Memphis is currently in its 3rd smash year on Broadway, delighting audiences nightly at the Shubert Theatre (225 West 44th Street).

Memphis recently launched a U.S. national tour in Memphis, TN, which opened to critical acclaim in October 2011 at the historic Orpheum Theatre.

Memphis will be released on Blu-ray™, DVD and digital download on January 24th by Shout! Factory, in association with Broadway Worldwide.

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, 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.

Great Performances is funded by The National Endowment for the Arts, the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, The Starr Foundation, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, Joseph A. Wilson, The LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, public television viewers, and PBS.

For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

The high definition production was captured by Broadway Worldwide live-in-performance at the Shubert Theatre. Broadway Worldwide is led by executive producer Bruce Brandwen, with five-time Emmy® winning director Don Roy King and Grammy® winning sound producer Matt Kaplowitz.

In September, the San Francisco Symphony and Tilson Thomas launched its milestone Centennial with a celebratory gala concert dubbed “Fanfare for a New Century” at Davies Symphony Hall.

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The two-hour broadcast is hosted by best-selling Bay Area author Amy Tan and features Tilson Thomas conducting the Orchestra and two of the leading artists of our time: legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor and the dynamic pianist Lang Lang performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major.

The concert opens with Aaron Copland’s vivid portrayal of American prairie life, the Billy the Kid Ballet Suite and concludes with Britten’s orchestral showpiece The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra of which the San Francisco Chronicle said: “…as Thomas led his colleagues, section by section and soloist by soloist… the listener could only marvel at the level of individual excellence and communal artistry on display.”

Capping off the concert is an encore of Bay Area composer John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine featuring animated images of San Francisco projected throughout Davies Symphony Hall.

Woven into the concert footage, San Francisco Symphony at 100 includes historical documentary features narrated by Tan highlighting the Orchestra’s early beginnings, its rich history of touring and its commitment to young people and innovations in media.

On April 1st, San Francisco Symphony at 100 will also be released on DVD and Blu-ray with additional bonus historical features (though will not feature Lang Lang’s concert performance.)

San Francisco Symphony at 100 is a production of San Francisco Symphony and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.

Major funding for the telecast is provided by Nan Tucker McEvoy and the National Endowment for the Arts.  Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Arts Fund, Vivian Milstein, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, The Starr Foundation, the Filomen M. Di’Agostino Foundation, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, public television viewers, and PBS.

San Francisco Symphony at 100 is directed by Gary Halvorson. Executive Producer: John Kieser. Producer: Michael Bronson. The History Vignettes are produced by Janette Gitler. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

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Recorded in April 2011 at the Frank Gehry-designed New World Center in Miami Beach, The Thomashefskys is written and hosted by Tilson Thomas and stars Broadway performers Judy Blazer as Bessie Thomashefsky and Shuler Hensley as Boris Thomashefsky.  It also features Ronit Widmann-Levy and Eugene Brancoveanu and the New World Symphony.

Founding members of the Yiddish Theater in America, the Thomashefskys owned theaters, published their own magazine, wrote columns in the popular Yiddish newspapers, sponsored and encouraged generations of young artists, brought uncountable numbers of Yiddish artists to America, tirelessly raised funds for progressive social causes and, though it all, were adventurous trend setters.

This story, reclaimed by The Thomashefky Project, presents a musical sound that few have heard, assimilating Eastern European klezmer and cantorial modes with American tunes and rhythms. Over time, as the Jewish American music theater writers became absorbed in their new surroundings, they greatly influenced the American Songbook.

The Thomashefskys is a very personal project for Tilson Thomas, celebrating the lives and theatrical and musical legacies of his grandparents.  Born out of his desire to preserve the music of the Yiddish theater, The Thomashefsky Project, founded in 1998, expanded from an archival role to this stage production hosted and conducted by Tilson Thomas and directed for the stage by Broadway veteran Patricia Birch.

It features music reconstructed from the original Yiddish theater repertoire interwoven with projected images and stories from Bessie and Boris’s lively memoirs.  “My grandparents became mega-stars and found themselves smack in the public eye,” says Tilson Thomas. “They were subject to adulation and relentless scrutiny. Legions of crazed fans were obsessed with every detail of their work and their lives.”

The stage version of The Thomashefskys has been performed to sold-out houses in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, and at Tanglewood in Massachusetts.  The San Francisco Chronicle said, “Thomas and his collaborators do what Yiddish artists always meant to do.  They make you forget your troubles for an evening, plunge into another world and feel your own more fully in the end.”

Following the national broadcast, The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater will be released on April 24 on DVD by New Video (www.newvideo.com). The New World Symphony was founded in 1987 by Michael Tilson Thomas and Ted Arison, and has launched the careers of over 800 musicians.

The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater is a production of The Thomashefsky Film Project LLC and THIRTEEN for WNET.

The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater is directed for television by Gary Halvorson. Producers: Joshua Robison, Michael Bronson, and Michael Kantor. For Great Performances, John Walker is producer; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

Major funding for the telecast is provided by Arison Arts Foundation, Marcia and John Goldman, Carole and Jeffrey Hays and Lydia and Douglas Shorenstein, Stephen and Sandra Muss, the Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation, the Koret Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and the Lisa and John Pritzker Fund.

Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, The Starr Foundation, the Filomen M. Di’Agostino Foundation, The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The DuBose and Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund, public television viewers and PBS.

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The opera, a compelling dramatization of the tragic final days of Anne Boleyn—whose husband Henry VIII spurns her and has her sentenced to death—is directed by David McVicar and conducted by Marco Armiliato. The cast includes Russian mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Gubanova as Anna’s romantic rival, Giovanna (Jane Seymour); Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakov as the cruel Enrico (Henry VIII); American tenor Stephen Costello as Anna’s first love, Lord Percy; and American mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford as the queen’s devoted page Smeton.

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

The telecast was originally seen live in movie theaters on October 15 as part of the groundbreaking series, The Met: Live in HD, which transmits live performances to more than 1600 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 54 countries around the world.

Generally considered one of Donizetti’s finest operas, Anna Bolena is the first in a trilogy of works based on the lives of Tudor-era queens that David McVicar will direct at the Met over the next few seasons (the other two are Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux). McVicar, whose production of Il Trovatore aired on Great Performances at the Met in August, has created a historically detailed setting for the opera, which re-emerged as a musical and dramatic showpiece for extraordinary sopranos when Maria Callas starred in a famous 1957 La Scala revival of the work.

“Donizetti takes the bel canto form and explores every possible dramatic opportunity within it,” McVicar says. “The lynchpin of the story is Anna Bolena’s inability to provide Henry VIII with the male heir that he craves. And, of course, to be a wife of Henry VIII is to risk as much as you gain.”

She made her Met debut in 2002 as Natasha in Prokofiev’s War and Peace. Since then, Netrebko has sung nine additional roles with the company, including Donizetti’s Norina in Don Pasquale and Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor. This spring, she will return to the Met as the hedonistic heroine of Massenet’s Manon in her second new production of the season, also to be broadcast on Great Performances at the Met.

Gubanova made her Met debut in a 2007 revival of War and Peace and starred as Giulietta opposite Netrebko’s Antonia in Bartlett Sher’s 2009 new production premiere of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. At the Met, Abdrazakov has starred in the title role in the company premiere of Verdi’s Attila, as Méphistophélès in both Gounod’s Faust and Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust, and as Raimondo in Lucia di Lammermoor. Rising young tenor Costello made his Met debut as Arturo, Lucia’s doomed husband, in the new production of Lucia di Lammermoor that opened the 2007-08 season. He sang the role of Percy at the Dallas Opera in the 2010-11 season.

The design team for Anna Bolena includes two artists making their Met debuts. Scenic designer Robert Jones collaborated with McVicar on the acclaimed 2005 Glyndebourne production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare and has designed numerous plays and musicals, including the Broadway productions of Tom Stoppard’s Rock ‘n’ Roll and the 2002 revival of Noises Off. Olivier Award-winning costume designer Jenny Tiramani, a leading authority on historical costuming, has designed for numerous theater productions and spent eight years as Head of Design at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Paule Constable, whose Met credits include the company premiere of Philip Glass’s Satyagraha and this season’s new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, is the lighting designer for Anna Bolena. Her numerous honors include a 2011 Tony Award for her work on Broadway’s War Horse.

This production of Anna Bolena was made possible by a generous gift from Mercedes and Sid R. Bass.

Renée Fleming, who will star in Handel’s Rodelinda later this year on Great Performances at the Met, hosts. Gary Halvorson directs the telecast.

Great Performances is funded by Vivian Milstein, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, and Annaliese Soros. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®.

For the Met, Mia Bongiovanni and Elena Park are Supervising Producers, and Louisa Briccetti and Victoria Warivonchik are Producers. Peter Gelb is Executive Producer. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is Series Producer; David Horn is Executive Producer.

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

Having been credited with creating a new form of theater, to create Let Me Down Easy Smith interviewed an eclectic group of people (300 on three continents) and performs several in an evening that is funny, moving and engaging.

The title resonates on several levels reverberating with meanings of lost love, the faith that sustains people in times of difficulty, and ultimately, the end of life.

Smith, through her chameleon-like virtuosity, creates an indelible gallery of portraits, from a rodeo bull rider to a prize fighter to a New Orleans doctor during Hurricane Katrina, as well as boldface names like former Texas Governor Ann Richards, legendary cyclist Lance Armstrong, network film critic Joel Siegel, and supermodel Lauren Hutton. She performs 19 characters in the course of an hour and thirty five minutes. Their stories are alternately humorous and heart-wrenching, and often a blend of both. Building upon each other with hypnotic force, her subjects recount personal encounters with the frailty of the human body, ranging from a mere brush with mortality, coping with an uncertain future in today’s medical establishment, to confronting an end of life transition. The testimony of health care professionals adds further texture to a vivid portrayal of the cultural and societal attitudes to matters of health.

With keen observation and understated compassion, Smith – without judgment and maintaining the dignity of her subjects at all times — effortlessly submerges her own persona, and assumes her characters’ vocal and physical mannerisms with unerring accuracy.

Despite the profound poignancy of the issues at hand, Smith leavens the evening with many lighter anecdotes, some outright hilarious: choreographer Elizabeth Streb recounts how she accidentally set herself on fire as part of an elaborate birthday celebration; Smith’s own Aunt (Lorraine Colman) recalls the last (and distinctly unsentimental) words uttered by her elder sister; and when a Yale School of Medicine oncology fellow informs cancer patient Ruth Katz that the hospital has lost her records — he is dumbfounded to discover she is actually the associate dean of the medical school there. Other characters address the intensity of the will to live even in the face of dire sickness: University of Notre Dame musicologist Susan Youens rhapsodizes on the Adagio from Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major, one of over a thousand works Schubert composed before his untimely death at age 31; and while undergoing chemotherapy, Ann Richards defiantly tells of learning how to hang up the phone to preserve her precious “Chi.”

Called “the most exciting individual in American theater” by Newsweek magazine, Smith (Fires in the Mirror, Twilight: Los Angeles) turns on this occasion to tell a powerful story which points to the financial and psychological cost of care, the preciousness of life and the inevitability of our mortality.

“Even in the darkest hour, even where the crisis is the greatest, you’ll often find people who have the gift of grace, the gift of kindness, the gift of healing,” Smith observed. “Ultimately, through this play I am trying to spark a conversation that is easier, and maybe more enjoyable to have through art and entertainment than through politics.”

Let Me Down Easy was inspired by work she did at Yale School of Medicine, where she was invited as a visiting professor. Bill Moyers dedicated a full hour segment to profiling Ms. Smith and Let Me Down Easy, noting with amazement how her play transformed “a houseful of strangers” into “an intimate community.”

Throughout the evening, Smith assumes the parts of (in order):

• James H. Cone, author, reverend, and professor, Union Theological Seminary, NYC
• Elizabeth Streb, choreographer, Streb Dance Company, NYC
• Brent Williams, rodeo bull rider, Idaho
• Lance Armstrong, Tour de France Victor
• Sally Jenkins, sports columnist, The Washington Post
• Michael Bentt, world champion heavyweight boxer
• Hazel Merritt, patient, Yale-New Haven Hospital
• Lauren Hutton, supermodel
• Ruth Katz, patient, Yale-New Haven Hospital
• Kiersta Kurtz-Burke, physician, Charity Hospital, New Orleans
• Dr. Phillip A. Pizzo, dean, Stanford University School of Medicine
• Susan Youens, Musicologist, University of Notre Dame
• Eduardo Bruera, palliative care M.D., Anderson Cancer Center
• Ann Richards, former governor, Texas
• Lorraine Coleman, retired teacher, Anna Deavere Smith’s aunt
• Joel Siegel, ABC movie critic
• Peter Gomes, reverend, Memorial Church, Harvard University
• Trudy Howell, director, Chance Orphanage, Johannesburg
• Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk, author, French translator for the Dalai Lama

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.

On the West Coast, the San Francisco Chronicle declared the work “extraordinary,” and added, “This is Smith at the top of her unique documentary theater form, in writing, performance, and timeliness.”

Smith has been credited with creating 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, and is well remembered for her role of national security advisor Nancy McNally on NBC’s The West Wing. Her major film credits include “The American President,” “Philadelphia,” and “Rachel Getting Married.”

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 the Crown Heights riots in 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 – directed for the stage by theater and opera director Leonard Foglia — was directed for television by veteran Matthew Diamond (Cyrano de Bergerac, From Broadway: Fosse, Swan Lake with American Ballet Theatre, all for Great Performances, and an Oscar nominee for the 1999 documentary Dancemaker).

After its Arena Stage run, the production embarked on a national tour with stops at The Wexner Center for the Arts; Philadelphia Theatre Company; a collaborative presentation of San Diego REPertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and the Vantage Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and The Broad Stage.

Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, the Starr Foundation and Joseph A. Wilson, LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust,public television viewers, and PBS. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell and Mitch Owgang are producers; O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.