Bryan Hymel stars as Aeneas, the Trojan hero whose adventures take him from the fall of Troy to the shores of the North African kingdom of Carthage. Deborah Voigt sings Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess who tries to warn her countrymen of the dangers about to befall them, and Susan Graham makes her Met role debut as Dido, the Carthaginian queen who gives her heart to Aeneas with disastrous consequences. The five-act epic will be seen in Francesca Zambello‘s critically acclaimed 2003 production, which received its first Met revival this season.

“Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham triumphed in her first Met performance as Dido…in one of the greatest works in the repertory,” noted Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times.

“This revival is carried by splendid performances by Susan Graham as Dido and Deborah Voigt as Cassandra, along with the always excellent Met chorus and orchestra under the exacting and fast-paced conducting of Fabio Luisi,” echoed Wilborn Hampton in the Huffington Post.

Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato hosts the transmission and conducts backstage interviews with the stars.

Les Troyens was originally seen live in movie theaters on January 5 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1900 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 64 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. Throughout its 40 year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America’s most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming.  Now in its fifth decade, the series has been the home to the greatest artists in the areas of drama, dance, musical theater, classical and popular music, providing many with their very first television exposure.

Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.  This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and public television viewers.

For the Met, Barbara Willis Sweete directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer, 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.

Watch a preview:

More than 200 artists fill the Met stage for this performance of Verdi’s tragedy, which sets a heartbreaking love triangle against the backdrop of an empire at war.

Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska made a spectacular Met debut as Aida, the enslaved Ethiopian princess, opposite two major Met stars: tenor Roberto Alagna as the war hero Radamès and Olga Borodina as the pharaoh’s daughter Amneris, Aida’s formidable rival. George Gagnidze sings Amonasro, Aida’s cunning father, and Štefan Kocán is the imposing Egyptian priest Ramfis. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi conducts his first company performances of the opera.

“If you’ve ever wondered why they call it ‘grand’ opera, the magnificent Met Opera production of Verdi’s Aida…can show you what the fuss is all about,” declared Wilborn Hampton in the Huffington Post.

“Ms. Monastyrska is gifted with a luscious round soprano that maintains its glow even in the softest notes,” observed Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim in The New York Times. “Her ‘O patria mia’ was beautifully drawn and colored with darker inflections that added dramatic intensity…the combined fervor of Olga Borodina as Amneris and Fabio Luisi at the helm of a fired-up orchestra made for an electrically charged and energetic performance.”

Star soprano Renée Fleming hosts the broadcast and conducts backstage interviews with the cast.

Aida was originally seen live in movie theaters on December 15 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1900 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 64 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. Throughout its 40 year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America’s most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming.  Now in its fifth decade, the series has been the home to the greatest artists in the areas of drama, dance, musical theater, classical and popular music, providing many with their very first television exposure.

Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.  This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Sybil B. Harrington Endowment Fund, the Irene Diamond Fund, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and public television viewers.

For the Met, Gary Halvorson directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer, 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.

Watch a preview:

Some of the Met’s leading Verdi stars take on the central roles in the opera’s love triangle: Marcelo Álvarez as the ill-fated King Gustavo III; Dmitri Hvorostovsky as his best friend and eventual rival, Count Anckarström; and Sondra Radvanovsky as Amelia, Anckarström’s wife and the object of the king’s secret passion. Kathleen Kim sings the coloratura role of Oscar, Gustavo’s page, and Stephanie Blythe is Mme. Ulrica Arvidsson, a fortune-teller with ominous news for the king.

Soprano Deborah Voigt hosts the transmission and conducts backstage interviews with the stars.

When the production debuted at the Met in November, the Associated Press hailed it as “An intriguing, fresh look at one of the essential works of the repertory,” while the Huffington Post sang the praises of “(a)n excellent cast who bring all the emotion, tenderness, and tension to a score that is both exciting and haunting.”

Un Ballo in Maschera was originally seen live in movie theaters on December 8 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1900 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 64 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. Throughout its 40 year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America’s most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming.  Now in its fifth decade, the series has been the home to the greatest artists in the areas of drama, dance, musical theater, classical and popular music, providing many with their very first television exposure.

Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.  This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and public television viewers.

For the Met, Matthew Diamond directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer, 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.

Watch a preview:

Polish tenor Piotr Beczala sings the Duke, an amoral lounge singer whose entourage includes the world-weary comedian Rigoletto, sung by Serbian baritone Željko Lučić. German soprano Diana Damrau sings the role of the innocent Gilda, Rigoletto’s daughter and the victim of the predatory Duke. Slovakian bass Štefan Kocán sings the assassin-for-hire Sparafucile and Belarusian mezzo-soprano Oksana Volkova makes her Met debut as his seductive sister, Maddalena. Italian conductor Michele Mariotti conducts his first company performances of the Verdi masterwork, which features one of the most famous arias in all of opera, “La donna è mobile.”

Soprano Renee Fleming hosts the transmission and conducts backstage interviews with the stars.

“Rigoletto hits the jackpot,” declared Associated Press when the production debuted in January, while Bloomberg News reported, “Mayer captures both the emotional depth and surface glitter in an audacious staging…. The audience whooped approval at the end.” The Wall Street Journal noted that “(t)he strong cast of principals carries out the concept with gusto.”

Rigoletto was originally seen live in movie theaters on February 16 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1900 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 64 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. Throughout its 40 year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America’s most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming.  Now in its fifth decade, the series has been the home to the greatest artists in the areas of drama, dance, musical theater, classical and popular music, providing many with their very first television exposure.

Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.  This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, Vivian Milstein, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and public television viewers.

For the Met, Matthew Diamond directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer, 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.

Mezzo-soprano Susan Graham hosts the telecast and conducts backstage interviews with the stars, Sunday, April 14 at 12 noon on PBS (check local listings). In New York, THIRTEEN will premiere the opera on Thursday, April 11 at 8:30 p.m., with an encore showing Sunday, April 14 at 12:30 p.m.

Watch a preview:

Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti takes on the title role of the Roman emperor Titus, the target of an assassination scheme by the vengeful Vitellia (Barbara Frittoli). American mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey and English soprano Lucy Crowe co-star as the young lovers Annio and Servilia in this performance of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s stylized 1984 production, which is conducted by Baroque specialist Harry Bicket.

Critics praised the production in November: “The cast, headlined by the lustrous-voiced Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, is consistently top-notch…[Garanča] embodies the plight of the anguished young hero with moving restraint, and in her two arias she produces luminous sounds that seem to linger suspended in the air like shining pearls,” wrote the Associated Press’ Mike Silverman.

James Jorden of the New York Post hailed it as a “superb revival,” adding that the production “was more than the sum of its excellent parts, thanks to the imaginative and vigorous conducting of Harry Bicket,” and predicted that the production with its “1700s costumes and Roman ruins against a palette of warm brown-blacks and parchment whites… should look particularly handsome when the opera is telecast…”

La Clemenza di Tito was originally seen live in movie theaters on December 1 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1900 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 64 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 50 years, THIRTEEN has been making the most of the rich resources and passionate people of New York and the world, reaching millions of people with on-air and online programming that celebrates arts and culture, offers insightful commentary on the news of the day, explores the worlds of science and nature, and invites students of all ages to have fun while learning.

Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.  This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and public television viewers.

For the Met, Barbara Willis Sweete directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer, 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.

The world-renowned Paul Taylor Dance Company has set the global standard for contemporary dance excellence.  Since the company’s founding in 1954, Mr. Taylor has choreographed 136 dances, many of which have attained iconic status and have been celebrated throughout the world. Taylor has achieved countless accolades, including two of our nation’s highest artistic distinctions: the Kennedy Center Honors and the National Medal of Arts.

THIRTEEN’s Great Performances presents two of Paul Taylor’s masterworks on Paul Taylor Dance Company in Paris on Friday, May 3 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The dances were recorded last year at the Théâtre National de Chaillot at the Festival Les Étes de la Danse 2012, where the company – a Paris favorite – dazzled audiences.  The engagement in Paris marks The Company’s 50th Anniversary of its first appearance there  in 1962.

Watch a preview:

Brandenburgs, first performed in 1988 to music from Bach’s Brandenburg concertos #3 and #6; and his 2008 dance Beloved Renegade, set to music from Francis Poulenc’s Gloria, are the featured pieces.

Brandenburgs is one of Taylor’s magnificent collection of works set to music by a master of the baroque.  The dance’s exuberance matches the ferocious energy of Bach’s spirited concertos. Mary Clarke of the Manchester [UK] Guardian wrote, “Beauty is the only word for Brandenburgs… [which] celebrates the good things in life.  Such a radiant, seamless flow of invention that the choreography seems an entirely natural way of moving to this music.”

Beloved Renegade is set to Francis Poulenc’s “Gloria.”  The dance was inspired by the life and work of 19th Century American writer Walt Whitman, who revered the body and soul as one and who famously loved all with equal ardor. It depicts the experiences of an artist described in a line from Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”: “I am the poet of the body and I am the poet of the soul.”

Scenes from Whitman’s life include watching youngsters at play, and tending to the afflicted just as the poet nursed wounded soldiers during the Civil War. After his own mortality is foretold, the poet bids poignant farewell to those who love him. He is then embraced by a benevolent feminine spirit with “the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.”

Reviewing the Gallic season, Clement Crisp in The Financial Times of London declared Beloved Renegade an “astonishment,” praising lead dancer Michael Trusnovec for “a performance of noblest clarity” and noting “the magnificence of the company’s dancing.”

As prolific as ever, Taylor continues to offer cogent observations on life’s complexities while tackling some of society’s thorniest issues. He propels his dancers through space for the sheer beauty of it, or uses them to wordlessly illuminate war, spirituality, sexuality, morality and mortality.

“I hope each person in the audience will find something to relate to,” remarks Taylor during the intermission feature, which includes his thoughts on these two works. He delights in the gallantry of the men and the playfulness of the women in Brandenburgs. Of Beloved Renegade, he reveals his favorite part of the work is when Whitman goes to each of his friends to say goodbye, as a Dark Angel brings him to death.

Laura Shapiro once wrote in Newsweek, “Short course in modern dance: in the beginning there was Martha Graham, who changed the face of an art form and discovered a new world. Then there was Merce Cunningham, who stripped away the externals and showed us the heart of movement. And then there was Paul Taylor, who let the sun shine in.”

BRANDENBURGS

Music by Johann Sebastian Bach

(With Michael Trusnovec, Amy Young, Parisa Khobdeh, Eran Bugge, Robert Kleinendorst, James Samson, Sean Mahoney, Michael Apuzzo, and Michael Novak)

BELOVED RENEGADE

Music by Francis Poulenc : Gloria

(With Michael Trusnovec, Amy Young, Robert Kleinendorst, James Samson, Laura Halzack,

Michelle Fleet, Parisa Khobdeh, Sean Mahoney, Jeffrey Smith, Eran Bugge, Francisco Graciano,

Jamie Rae Walker, Michael Apuzzo, Aileen Roehl, and Heather McGinley).

The dances feature costumes by Santo Loquasto and lighting by Jennifer Tipton.

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN for WNET, one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers. Throughout its 40 year history on public television, Great Performances has provided viewers across the country with an unparalleled showcase of the best in all genres of the performing arts, serving as America’s most prestigious and enduring broadcaster of cultural programming.  Over the course of its four decades, the series has been the home to the greatest artists in the areas of drama, dance, musical theater, classical and popular music, providing many with their very first television exposure.

Paul Taylor Dance Company in Paris is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET, Paul Taylor Dance Foundation, and Bel Air Media.

The broadcast was directed by Andy Sommer.   Francois Duplat, Joan Hershey and John Walker are producers. For Great Performances, Richard R. Schilling is producer; Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.

Major funding for Great Performances is provided by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, The Lewis “Sonny” Turner Fund for Dance, the Anne Ray Charitable Trust, Vivian Milstein, Jody and John Arnhold, The Starr Foundation, Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown, the LuEsther T. Mertz Charitable Trust, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and PBS.

In New York, THIRTEEN will premiere the opera on Thursday, March 21 at 9 p.m., with an encore showing Sunday, March 24 at 12:30 p.m.

Watch a preview:

Simon Keenlyside leads the cast as the exiled magician Prospero, a role he created at the opera’s 2004 world premiere. The opera also stars Isabel Leonard as Prospero’s daughter, Miranda; Alek Shrader as the shipwrecked prince, Ferdinand; Alan Oke as the monstrous island native Caliban; and Audrey Luna in the stratospheric coloratura role of the air spirit Ariel.

Heidi Waleson of the Wall Street Journal raved, “This is the Met at its adventurous best.” And Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times called the production “One of the most inspired, audacious and personal operas to have come along in years…a superb cast, headed by the charismatic baritone Simon Keenlyside…Adès drew a textured, glittering and suspenseful account of his opera from the great Met orchestra.”

In Lepage’s production, Prospero, a 19^th-century impresario and the exiled Duke of Milan, has recreated the La Scala opera house on his island as a magical box for his sorcery. The design team comprises four distinguished artists in their Met debuts: set designer Jasmine Catudal, costume designer Kym Barrett, lighting designer Michel Beaulieu, and video image artist David Leclerc.

Thomas Adès is one of the leading composers in the world of contemporary classical music. The English artist’s works are regularly performed at the world’s leading opera houses, festivals, and symphonies. His first opera, Powder Her Face, has been staged all over the world and recorded for CD and DVD. Adès conducted the world premiere of The Tempest at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 2004. Multiple productions in Europe and North America, including the 2006 American premiere at the Santa Fe Opera, have been met with overwhelming critical acclaim. Adès’s music has earned widespread recognition and numerous awards, including the prestigious Grawemeyer Award—of which he is the youngest-ever recipient. The Tempest is the first Adès opera to be staged at the Met, and the composer makes his Met debut as conductor of the work.

Robert Lepage has directed two previous productions at the Met, Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust in 2008 and, across the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons, a new production of Wagner’s four-part epic Der Ring des Nibelungen, both seen on Great Performances at the Met. His staging of The Tempest, a co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, L’Opéra de Quebec, and the Wiener Staatsoper, Vienna, premiered at the Quebec Opera Festival in July 2012. The multi-disciplinary artist has directed numerous acclaimed productions of Shakespeare’s Tempest, in both French and English.

Meredith Oakes’s plays include The Neighbour, The Editing Process, Faith, Scenes from the Back of Beyond, Mind the Gap, Man for Hire, and Shadowmouth. Her works have been produced in numerous high-profile venues, including London’s Royal National Theater and Royal Court Theatre.

Simon Keenlyside sang the role of Prospero in the 2004 world premiere of The Tempest at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Audrey Luna sang Ariel in the Quebec Opera Festival premiere of Lepage’s staging of The Tempest. Toby Spence sang the role of Ferdinand in The Tempest’s world premiere and now sings Antonio.

Soprano Deborah Voigt will host the broadcast. The Tempest was originally seen live in movie theaters on November 10 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1900 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 64 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 50 years, THIRTEEN has been making the most of the rich resources and passionate people of New York and the world, reaching millions of people with on-air and online programming that celebrates arts and culture, offers insightful commentary on the news of the day, explores the worlds of science and nature, and invites students of all ages to have fun while learning.

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®. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. This Great Performances presentation is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Agnes Varis Trust, and public television viewers.

For the Met, Gary Halvorson directs the telecast. Jay David Saks is Music Producer, 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.

Renée Fleming performs “Ave Maria” from Verdi’s Otello. “GP at the Met: Otello” airs Sunday, February 24 at 12:00pm.

Renée Fleming and Johan Botha perform “Già Nella Notte Densa” from Verdi’s Otello. “GP at the Met: Otello” airs Sunday, February 24 at 12:00pm.