GREAT PERFORMANCES mourns the passing of the two-time Oscar-winning Hollywood legend and passionate AIDS research advocate Elizabeth Taylor. Her life and career were celebrated by GP in the 2001 profile, “Elizabeth Taylor: England’s Other Elizabeth.” The hour featured interviews with Shirley MacLaine, Rod Steiger, Angela Lansbury; and Taylor herself illustrated with extensive films clips and archival home videos.

Deborah Voigt sings the title role of Minnie in Giancarlo Del Monaco’s 1991 production, with Marcello Giordani as Dick Johnson (the disguised bandit Ramerrez) and Lucio Gallo as the villainous sheriff Jack Rance. San Francisco Opera Music Director Nicola Luisotti conducts the work, which the composer told The New York Times in 1910 he considered “the best of [his] operas.”

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Set in a mining camp during the California Gold Rush, saloon owner Minnie has her sights set on the mysterious Dick Johnson, and nothing—not horses, hangmen, nor a high-stakes poker game—can keep her from finding true love.

The debut of La Fanciulla del West on December 10, 1910 was the first-ever world premiere presented by the Met. It earned nineteen curtain calls for Puccini, stage director David Belasco, stars Emmy Destinn and Enrico Caruso, and conductor Arturo Toscanini. A review in the New York Herald suggests that the evening was a triumph for all involved: “The event had been looked forward to as socially one of the most brilliant in the history of the house, and the result justified expectation…In a word, it was the kind of premiere of which older Europe would have been very proud and of which New York would have been envious.”

As for the current production, the Associated Press praised Voigt for “a riveting and moving portrayal” displaying a “shining top that pierced through the sumptuous orchestration…her warm, endearing manner combined with an infectious stage-dominating moxie to make [the role] all her own.” As Dick Johnson, Giordani “is at his best here” said the New York Daily News. Under the baton of Luisotti “the score emerged as arguably Puccini’s most subtly written and boldly modern music” (The New York Times).

Great Performances at the Met: La Fanciulla del West was directed for the live HD transmission by Barbara Willis Sweete and hosted by Met soprano Sondra Radvanovsky. Jay David Saks is the music producer. The performance is sung in Italian with English subtitles.

Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, public television viewers and PBS. Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. Additional funding for Great Performances at the Met: La Fanciulla del West is provided by The Sybil B. Harrington Endowment Fund.

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.

In New York, THIRTEEN will air the program Thursday, July 7  at 8 p.m. The program was originally seen live in movie theaters on December 11, 2010 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 1500 movie theaters and performing arts centers in 46 countries around the world.

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

The Met’s production of Verdi’s grand opera, in which love, war, politics, and religion intertwine against the backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition, stars Roberto Alagna as the conflicted title character; Marina Poplavskaya as Elisabeth de Valois; Anna Smirnova as the scheming Princess Eboli; Ferruccio Furlanetto as the tormented tyrant Philip II; Simon Keenlyside as the heroic Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa; and Eric Halfvarson as the Grand Inquisitor.

Critics and audiences greeted this new production and its cast with kudos: “You’ve heard about total theater? This is it.” (Variety); “A clear-cut hit… rarely have I seen an opera audience so unanimously satisfied” (Philadelphia Inquirer); and “Music so glorious not one minute seems superfluous” (Bloomberg).

This production uses the five-act Italian version of Don Carlo, which includes the “Fontainebleau Act.” A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, Hytner’s Don Carlo premiered in London in 2008.

Hytner brought two internationally acclaimed designers to the Met for the first time with Don Carlo: set and costume designer Bob Crowley, the winner of five Tony awards for his Broadway designs, and Tony-winning lighting designer Mark Henderson who has received five Olivier Awards for his work on the London stage.

Great Performances at the Met: Don Carlo was directed for live HD transmission by Gary Halvorson and hosted by soprano Deborah Voigt. Jay David Saks is the music producer. The performance is sung in Italian with English subtitles.

Great Performances is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, public television viewers and PBS.  Corporate support for Great Performances at the Met is provided by Toll Brothers, America’s luxury home builder®. This production of Don Carlo was made possible by a generous gift from Mr. and Mrs. William R. Miller.

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.