The June 1 premiere broadcast of Nixon in China will immediately follow a new American Masters episode (8 p.m., check local listings) about the extraordinary career of Met Music Director James Levine.

Nixon in China stars James Maddalena as Richard Nixon, a role he created at the opera’s world premiere in 1987. With a libretto by American poet Alice Goodman, the opera is based on significant moments during President Nixon’s visit to China in February of 1972, with the key political figures as the lead characters: Nixon, first lady Pat Nixon (Janis Kelly) and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Richard Paul Fink) for the Americans; Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Robert Brubaker), his wife Chiang Ch’ing (Kathleen Kim), and Premier Chou En-lai (Russell Braun) for the Chinese.

The Met’s production features the work of the world premiere production’s design team, including set designer Adrianne Lobel, costume designer Dunya Ramicova, lighting designer James F. Ingalls, and choreographer Mark Morris. Adams, Sellars, Goodman and Morris also collaborated on the opera The Death of Klinghoffer.

Adams, who has conducted his works with many major orchestras, makes his Met debut as conductor of Nixon in China; his opera Doctor Atomic had its Met premiere in 2008 and later aired on Great Performance at the Met.

Maddalena has sung Nixon on many of the world’s leading stages, including the English National Opera, Netherlands Opera, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Washington Opera, and the Théâtre du Châtelet. Kelly, who also starred with Maddalena in the recent English National Opera revival of the opera, made her Met debut as Pat Nixon. Kathleen Kim, who won critical plaudits for her Zerbinetta and Olympia in recent seasons, takes on the challenging coloratura role of Chiang Ch’ing, the forbidding and formidable wife of Mao Tse-tung. Brubaker has sung in many 20th-century works at the Met, including Moses und Aron, The Makropoulos Case, Peter Grimes, and the Met premiere of Busoni’s Doktor Faust. Braun is best-known to Met audiences for his Figaro in Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Fink sang principal roles in the Met premieres of Adams’ Doctor Atomic and John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby.

Great Performances at the Met: Nixon in China was directed for the live HD transmission by Peter Sellars and hosted by Met baritone Thomas Hampson. Jay David Saks is the music producer. The performance is sung in English with subtitles.

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, and Joseph A. Wilson. 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: Nixon in China was provided by M. Beverly and Robert G. Bartner.

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.

GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET launches its third season on PBS with the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Doctor Atomic, John Adams’ powerful portrait of the physicist presiding over the creation of the atom bomb, Monday, December 29 at 9 p.m. ET (check local listings). Presented by Thirteen/WNET New York in high definition and 5.1 digital surround sound, the 2005 work stars Canadian baritone Gerald Finley as the Faustian J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Father of the A-Bomb.” Alan Gilbert conducts.

Watch a preview:

UPDATE: Read an interview conducted by Thirteen.org with John Adams.

“An ambitious, haunting work,” proclaimed The New York Times of Penny Woolcock’s cinematic new production, with special praise for Finley (“vocally visceral and emotionally nuanced”) and Gilbert. “The performance he draws from the Met Orchestra and Chorus is a revelation. This score continues to impress as Mr. Adams’ most complex and masterly music.”

The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer (On the Transmigration of Souls) often tackles contemporary and controversial subjects, such as his first opera, 1987’s Nixon in China. The second, The Death of Klinghoffer, followed in 1991, with Doctor Atomic having its world premiere at San Francisco Opera 14 years later. This production marks his Met debut.

Set in New Mexico in the summer of 1945, as scientists, led by Oppenheimer, and the military prepare to test the first nuclear bomb, the work neatly limns events that will radically change the course of history. “Adams has created a score filled with color, syncopation and lush interludes,” wrote Associated Press.

Doctor Atomic, sung in English to Peter Sellars’ libretto, is directed for television by Gary Halvorson and hosted by acclaimed Met mezzo Susan Graham. Julian Crouch designed the sets; Catherine Zuber the costumes; Brian MacDevitt the lighting. Andrew Dawson is choreographer. The production was transmitted as part of The Met: Live in HD series on November 8, 2008 and was recorded for this telecast.

Bonus material includes a feature on J. Robert Oppenheimer.

Also in the large cast are mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke as Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty; bass-baritone Richard Paul Fink (Edward Teller); bass-baritone Eric Owens (General Leslie Groves); tenor Thomas Glenn (Robert Wilson); and contralto Meredith Arwady (Pasqualita).

The Met’s new production of Doctor Atomic was underwritten through a generous grant from Agnes Varis and Karl Leichtman. Funding for the GREAT PERFORMANCES telecast of Doctor Atomic is being provided by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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. Corporate support for GREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET is provided by Toll Brothers.