Watch a preview:

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.

Watch a preview:

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® winnng 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.

Watch a preview:

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.

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.

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.