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Great Performances

Arts and Music Series / 6 Seasons

Great Performances brings the best in the performing arts from across America and around the world to a US television audience. It presents a diverse programming portfolio of classical music, opera, popular song, musical theater, dance, drama, and performance documentaries.

Watch Latest: S52 E7

1h 30m / TV-G

Billy Elliot the Musical Live - Electricity

1m 55s

Elliott Hanna (age 11) plays the role of Billy Elliot in Billy Elliot the Musical Live. In this excerpt of the scene of his big audition for the Royal Ballet School, he attempts to explain to the judging panel and to his own father what dance means to him.

GP at the Met: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci

35s

Sir David McVicar directs the first new Met production of the popular verismo double bill in 45 years: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, both with Marcelo Álvarez as the male lead. Eva-Maria Westbroek and Patricia Racette also star. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the operas, both set in Sicily - one in a 1900 village square, the other at a 1948 truck stop. Check local listings.

Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2015 - Preview

35s

Led by guest conductor Zubin Mehta, the world-renowned Vienna Philharmonic returns for its 12th open-air summer concert, this time with a Scandinavian flavor, in the magnificent gardens of Austria’s Imperial Schönbrunn Palace. The varied program includes favorites by Grieg, Sibelius and Lumbye. The concert soloist is the internationally acclaimed Austrian piano virtuoso Rudolf Buckbinder.

Zubin Mehta Leads Vienna Philharmonic in Strauss Waltz

2m 59s

Zubin Mehta, guest conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic at it annual summer concert, leads the orchestra in Johann Strauss II's great Viennese waltz, "Wiener Blut." Footage from the concert includes aerial views of the gardens of Austria’s Imperial Schönbrunn Palace, the palace itself and the audience joining the music with dance. Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2015 airs Fri. Aug. 28.

Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2015: Edvard Grieg

2m 52s

Guest conductor Zubin Mehta leads the Vienna Philharmonic in Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16, with Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder. This free outdoor concert, recorded in May 2015, has a Scandinavian program but it ends as it does every year with a performance of the great Viennese waltz Wiener Blut by Johann Strauss II.

Rudolf Buchbinder, Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert

2m 56s

Viennese pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, soloist at the Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2015, performs Alfred Grünfeld's "Soirée de Vienne." Grünfeld (1852 - 1924) was an Austrian pianist and composer who was once court pianist to Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany and a professor at the Vienna Conservatory. Buchbinder has toured with the Vienna Philharmonic and appeared as soloist around the world.

GP at the Met: La Donna Del Lago

34s

Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez headline Rossini’s bel canto tour-de-force "La Donna del Lago" on Great Performances at the Met (check local listings). Based on the work by Sir Walter Scott, DiDonato is Elena, the lady of the lake pursued by two men, with Flórez as Giacomo, the benevolent king of Scotland. Michele Mariotti conducts debuting Scottish director Paul Curran’s staging.

John Williams and Gustavo Dudamel Discuss Film Score

3m 8s

John Williams composed the score to "Catch Me If You Can" (2002), directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. The film dramatizes the swindles of a real-life con man. Before the LA Philharmonic performs "Escapades" from the score, Gustavo Dudamel and Williams discuss the mystery the music creates. From "Dudamel Conducts a John Williams Celebration with the LA Phil."

Dudamel Conducts LA Phil in John Williams Celebration

39s

Natalie Portman hosts Dudamel Conducts a John Williams Celebration with the LA Phil on Great Performances Friday, July 24 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Itzhak Perlman is the special guest in a gala opening night concert paying tribute to the prolific film composer. The Los Angeles Philharmonic Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel conducts.

John Williams Recording His Great Performances Theme Music

5m 10s

Watch the great composer John Williams at work at Royce Hall in Los Angeles, CA, recording the theme song he wrote for Great Performances. The theme won the 2009 Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music and has been heard on Great Performances broadcasts since its debut on King Lear, starring Ian McKellen, March 27, 2009.

John Williams Conducts "The Imperial March" from Star Wars

2m 25s

Gustavo Dudamel hands the stage off to John Williams to conduct "The Imperial March" from his score to "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back." The march is also known as "Darth Vader's Theme." This is an excerpt from "Dudamel Conducts a John Williams Celebration with the LA Phil."

Driving Miss Daisy - Preview

35s

Alfred Uhry’s classic play is a searing, funny, and hopeful meditation on race relations in America, told through the complex relationship between two of popular culture’s most enduring characters. Daisy Werthan (Angela Lansbury) is a widowed, 72-year-old Jewish woman living in midcentury Atlanta, and Hoke Colburn (James Earl Jones) is an African American man who works as her chauffeur.

Driving Miss Daisy: Leaving Georgia

2m 8s

As chauffeur Hoke Colburn (James Earl Jones) and his employer Daisy Werthan (Angela Lansbury) set out on a long drive, Daisy reminisces about a family trip she took as a child, expressing something personal in an unguarded moment with Hoke. Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy stars Tony-winners Angela Lansbury, James Earl Jones and Boyd Gaines.

Driving Miss Daisy: Hoke Gets a Raise

2m 56s

Hoke Colburn (James Earl Jones), a chauffeur for Daisy Werthan, asks her son Boolie Werthan (Boyd Gaines) for a raise after he receives a competing job offer. The Pulitzer Prize-winning play stars five-time Tony Award winner and three-time Academy Award nominee Angela Lansbury and two-time Tony Award winner and Academy Award winner James Earl Jones as Daisy Werthan and Hoke Colburn.

Driving Miss Daisy: A Christmas Critique

2m 45s

Daisy Werthan (Angela Lansbury) and her daughter-in-law Florine are both Jewish, but it is only Florine who celebrates the Christmas holiday with relish. Miss Daisy complains about Florine to her chauffeur Hoke Colburn (James Earl Jones) while on her way to her son and Florine's Christmas party. Miss Daisy brings along coconuts for the ambrosia.

GP at the Met: Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle, a Double Bill

35s

Polish film director Mariusz Treli?ski makes his Met debut with the new production, inspired by noir films of the 1940s. Valery Gergiev conducts the two rarely performed one-acts: Tchaikovsky’s lyrical fairy tale Iolanta and Bartók’s harrowing Bluebeard’s Castle. Iolanta stars Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala and Aleksei Markov. Bluebeard's Castle stars Nadja Michael and Mikhail Petrenko.

GP at the Met: The Merry Widow - Renée Fleming & Nathan Gunn

1m 22s

Renée Fleming (Hanna) and Nathan Gunn (Danilo) perform an excerpt of their Act II duet "Hello, Here's a Soldier Bold" from Lehár's The Merry Widow. Costumes are by William Ivey Long and the new production in English is directed by Tony Award-winning choreographer and director Susan Stroman.

Great Performances at the Met: The Merry Widow

34s

The lavish new staging of Lehár’s effervescent operetta The Merry Widow is the Met debut of Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman. Soprano Renée Fleming adds a new character to her Met repertory as Hanna, the rich widow. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the cast that also includes baritone Nathan Gunn as Danilo; tenor Alek Shrader; baritone Sir Thomas Allen; and Broadway star Kelli O’Hara.

Twilight: Los Angeles - The Beverly Hills Hotel

3m 3s

Elaine Young, a real estate agent to Hollywood stars, and Henry "Keith" Watson, a co-assailant of Reginald Denny, are two of the real people depicted in Anna Deveare Smith's one-woman show Twilight: Los Angeles, about the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots in 1992. See Smith transform from one person to the next, using Young's and Watson's own words.

Twilight: Los Angeles Preview

34s

On the 23rd anniversary year of the Los Angeles riots, Great Performances presents a special encore of Twilight: Los Angeles. Anna Deveare Smith provides a new introduction to her landmark piece as its themes continue to reverberate powerfully within the context of today’s current events.

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