Episodes

John Lithgow hosts a two-hour event with Grammy-, Emmy- and Tony-winning performers, along with co-host Jordin Sparks on September 13 at 8 pm, live from Baltimore's harbor. Performers celebrating the 200th anniversary of our national anthem include Kristin Chenoweth, Melissa Etheridge, Denyce Graves-Montgomery, Little Big Town, Pentatonix, Smokey Robinson, Kenny Rogers, and Train.

In this exclusive interview, Tony Bennett and Gaga speak about being polarizing and respected public figures, as well as the importance of trusting your audience.

This special encore presentation of the original 1998 broadcast of "Cats" airs Friday, November 21 at 9 pm ET on Great Performances. Let the "Memory" live again, but this time see Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical in high definition and digital sound!

Stage and screen legend Julie Andrews returns for the sixth time to host the festive annual New Year’s celebration with the Vienna Philharmonic, under the direction of Zubin Mehta, from Vienna’s Musikverein. The Vienna State Ballet dances to both the “Students Polka” and the “Wine, Women and Song Waltz” in the palatial main building of Vienna’s 650-year-old university.

World-renowned American opera singer Renée Fleming convenes a festival of special guests to celebrate the diverse range of America’s vocal artistry. Young artists receive mentoring from respected singers including Ben Folds, Dianne Reeves, Sutton Foster, Eric Owens, Kim Burrell and Alison Krauss. Also see performances by Josh Groban, Sara Bareilles and Norm Lewis.

The season nine premiere of Great Performances at the Met is Mozart’s elegant masterpiece of marital discord, Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and staged by Richard Eyre. Ildar Abdrazakov sings the title role, Marlis Petersen plays Figaro’s quick-witted bride-to-be, Susanna, and Peter Mattei is Count Almaviva.

Director Rupert Goold's gripping stage production of Macbeth, set in a nameless 20th-century militaristic society and starring Sir Patrick Stewart in his Tony-nominated performance as the ambitious general, and Kate Fleetwood as his coldly scheming wife, has been rethought in vivid filmic terms.

Acclaimed director Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen stars Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili in the title role of the seductive gypsy, a part she has sung to acclaim at many of the world’s leading opera houses. Aleksandrs Antonenko sings the obsessed soldier Don José. Pablo Heras-Casado conducts. Great Performances at the Met: Carmen airs Feb. 22 at noon on PBS (check local listings).

Conducted by Alan Gilbert, selections include music by Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, Luis Bacalov, performed by the New York Philharmonic and featuring Joshua Bell, Renée Fleming and Josh Groban. The concert includes video projection with animated graphics and film clips related to the films La Dolce Vita, Cinema Paradiso, Once Upon a Time in the West, Il Postino and more.

Rossini’s classic comedy Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) features some of the most instantly recognizable melodies in all of opera. The dynamic young cast includes Lawrence Brownlee; Isabel Leonard; and Christopher Maltman in his first Met performances of Figaro, the title barber whose skills extend far beyond hair-cutting.

Choreographer Mark Morris’s signature work comes to television for the first time, hosted by Mikhail Baryshnikov. Morris garnered international fame for this piece, set to George Frideric Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with poetry by Milton. This performance was filmed July 2014 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain.

The concert of her Grammy-nominated album features Lennox’s takes on iconic American compositions by such artists as Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Billie Holiday and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, as she pays tribute to some of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

James Levine leads Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (“The Master-Singer of Nuremberg”) in its first Great Performances at the Met broadcast. Michael Volle is the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, starring with Johan Botha as Walther, Annette Dasch as Eva, Johannes Martin Kränzle as Beckmesser, Hans-Peter König as Pogner, Paul Appleby as David, and Karen Cargill as Magdalene. Renée Fleming hosts.

Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo stars as the tortured poet unlucky in love in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann on Great Performances at the Met Sunday, May 10 at 12 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Offenbach based the opera on three stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann. The production is by Broadway director Bartlett Sher. Soprano Deborah Voigt hosts the broadcast.

The start of BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons’ tenure with the orchestra features two of the conductor’s close colleagues: his wife, the acclaimed Latvian soprano Kristine Opolais, and the outstanding German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, each singing selections from the Wagnerian and Italian verismo repertoires. The inaugural concert was filmed in September 2014.