Episodes

A Celebration of Leonard Bernstein. Michael Tilson Thomas conducts the San Francisco Symphony. Features performances by Dawn Upshaw, Thomas Hampson, Yo-Yo Ma, and Christine Ebersole.

From soccer-playing son of a Modena, Italy, baker to onstage partner of "La Stupenda," world-renowned soprano Joan Sutherland, from media darling to truly one-of-a-kind superstar, it is a story writ as large as the great one himself.

Hailed by the Times of London as an “exceedingly yummy operatic cake,” and “the operatic show of the season,” this interpretation of Donizetti’s rousing La Fille du Régiment (The Daughter of the Regiment) premiered at Covent Garden in winter 2007 to rave reviews. Join GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Met for one of Donizetti’s most cherished -- and perhaps one of the most vocally challenging -- operas.

A trio of operas in three short stories - the first a gruesome murder melodrama, the second is a passionate tearjerker, and the third is a dark comedy of death and an inheritance. Each story is strikingly different from the preceding one.

Franco Zeffirelli’s timeless interpretation of the Puccini favorite has been delighting audiences at the Met for more than 20 years. GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Met is there when yet another magnificent cast takes to the stage in this enduring classic. Exciting young conductor Nicola Luisotti presides over a glorious vocal ensemble led by Angela Gheorghiu, who sings Mimì at the Met.

Since 1996, when he made a last-minute debut at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy, when he was all of 23, Juan Diego Flórez has moved quickly into the front ranks of today's opera stars. Now 34, the Peruvian-born tenor enjoys a career firmly planted in the bel canto repertoire of Donizetti, Bellini, and, especially, Rossini, thanks to his light, bright, agile voice.

Richard Wagner’s epic Tristan und Isolde is visually spare and dramatically gripping interpretation. Join GREAT PERFORMANCES at the Met for this special presentation, when Deborah Voigt—one of the world’s most celebrated Wagnerian sopranos—undertakes the iconic role of Isolde for the first time at the Met. Robert Dean Smith, a veteran Tristan of the Bayreuth Festi

For a man conducting a performance nearly every day of the year, Valery Gergiev remains the calm center of the frenzied world of musicians, singers, administrators, politicians, and managers swirling around him. Learn more about the Maestro in this scene from the program.

The 1879 opera Eugene Onegin, by Tchaikovsky, the story is told by a narrator (a lightly fictionalized version of Pushkin's public image), whose tone is educated, worldly, and intimate. The narrator digresses at times, usually to expand on aspects of this social and intellectual world.

Acclaimed tenor Anthony Dean Griffey tackles the title role in Benjamin Britten’s haunting Peter Grimes. Under investigation for unthinkable transgressions, Grimes proclaims his innocence in the face of the unrelenting accusations of his fellow townspeople. Director John Doyle—a Tony Award-winner for his interpretation of Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd on Broadway—makes his Met debut.

Libretto by Ha Jin and Tan Dun, based on the HISTORICAL RECORDS by Sima Qian (c. 145-85 BCE) and on Wei Lu's screenplay for THE EMPEROR'S SHADOW

The English civil war in the 1640s has divided the land between the supporters of Parliament under Oliver Cromwell (the Roundheads) and the Royalists who are faithful to the Stuart monarchy (the Cavaliers). King Charles I has been beheaded.

On the heels of her triumph in Jenufa, Finnish soprano Karita Mattila adds another landmark role to her Met repertory, the free-spirited beauty Manon Lescaut. Puccini’s early success tells the story of the magnetic attraction between two young lovers. Joined by acclaimed tenor Marcello Giordani and conducted by James Levine, Mattila finds the perfect vehicle for her exhilarating charisma.

When the heirs of Italian chemist, author and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi gave final approval for Antony Sher’s stage adaptation of Levi’s concentration camp memoir Survival in Auschwitz (U.S. title), they insisted the play should never be performed by anyone other than the distinguished actor himself. Their faith proved well placed.

Three ladies in the service of the Queen of the Night save the fainting Prince Tamino from a serpent ("A serpent! A monster!"). When they leave to tell the queen, the bird catcher Papageno bounces in and boasts to Tamino that it was he who killed the creature ("I'm Papageno").