The BEST episodes of Great Performances
Every episode of Great Performances ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Great Performances!
Great Performances, a television series devoted to the performing arts, has been telecast on PBS since 1972. The show is produced by WNET in New York City. It is one of the longest running performing arts anthologies on television, second only to Hallmark Hall of Fame. Great Performances presents concerts, ballet, opera, an occasional documentary, and plays. The series has also won many television awards, including an Emmy Award, a Peabody Award, and an Image Award, with nods from the Directors Guild of America and the Cinema Audio Society.
#1 - Les Misérables in Concert
Season 24 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/1/1996
In celebration of the megahit musical's 10th anniversary, a dream team of Les Miz singers unites at Royal Albert Hall to perform such beloved numbers as 'I Dreamed a Dream', 'Master of the House', and 'Who Am I'. The evening, which features Colm Wilkinson as Valjean, Lea Salonga as Eponine, and Philip Quast as Javert, culminates in an encore of 17 Valjeans from around the world singing 'Do You Hear the People Singing' in their native languages.
Watch Now:Amazon#3 - Great Performances at the Met: Lise Davidsen in Concert
Season 48 - Episode 19 - Aired 5/7/2021
The soprano performs arias and songs that brought her success around the world including selections from Wagner’s “Tannhäuser,” Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos,” Puccini’s “Manon Lescaut” and more from Oslo’s Oscarshall Palace in Norway.
Watch Now:Amazon
#4 - Now Hear This "Scarlatti: Man Out of Time"
Season 47 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/4/2019
Join Scott in Spain and Morocco to discover the greatest composer you’ve never heard of: Domenico Scarlatti. He was the finest keyboard player in Europe, hired by the Queen of Spain as her personal instructor. Scarlatti incorporated the sounds of Spain – Moorish, Jewish, Gypsy, folk, dance and guitar – to create a new musical language that inspired generations of musicians after him.
Watch Now:Amazon
#5 - Great Performances at the Met: La Fille du Régiment
Season 46 - Episode 26 - Aired 7/7/2019
Watch Donizetti’s romantic comedy about a budding military relationship starring Pretty Yende and Javier Camarena in a feast of bel canto vocal fireworks. Special guest Kathleen Turner makes her Met debut. Enrique Mazzola conducts.
Watch Now:Amazon
#6 - Now Hear This "The Riddle of Bach"
Season 47 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/27/2019
Scott Yoo goes to Germany to learn Bach’s sonatas and partitas, widely considered among the greatest works ever written for solo violin. There, he discovers a riddle Bach left behind in his portrait. In trying to solve it, Scott discovers that Bach based his melodic style on Vivaldi and his rhythms on the music of the French court, which leads to a spectacular finale in Paris.
Watch Now:Amazon
#7 - Now Hear This "Vivaldi: Something Completely Different"
Season 47 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/20/2019
Scott Yoo crosses Northern Italy, chasing the story of one of the most recorded pieces of music in the world, Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons,” and discovers how the composer merged religious melodies, opera and a new level of violin playing to launch a new era of music.
Watch Now:Amazon#8 - The Fred Astaire Songbook
Season 19 - Episode 4 - Aired 3/8/1991
Audrey Hepburn hosts this loving look back at Fred Astaire and the composers who wrote legendary songs for him.
#10 - Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2016
Season 43 - Episode 16 - Aired 9/30/2016
Led by guest conductor Semyon Bychkov for the very first time, the world-renowned Vienna Philharmonic returns for its 13th open-air concert, with a program of French orchestral classics, in the magnificent gardens of Austria’s Imperial Schönbrunn Palace.
Watch Now:Amazon
#12 - Great Performances at the Met: Semiramide
Season 45 - Episode 22 - Aired 7/8/2018
Experience Rossini’s masterpiece starring Angela Meade as Queen Semiramide and Elizabeth DeShong as Arsace, the Queen’s fiancé and her own son. Javier Camarena, Ildar Abdrazakov and Ryan Speedo Green complete the cast. Maurizio Benini conducts.
Watch Now:Amazon
#13 - Great Performances at the Met: Luisa Miller
Season 45 - Episode 25 - Aired 8/12/2018
Verdi's "Luisa Miller,'' a tragedy of fatherly love, features Placido Domingo, Sonya Yoncheva and Piotr Beczala.
#14 - Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2020
Season 47 - Episode 30 - Aired 6/25/2021
Enjoy the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of selections by Strauss, Wagner, Offenbach, Puccini and more from the Schönbrunn Palace Gardens under the baton of conductor Valery Gergiev featuring Metropolitan Opera tenor Jonas Kaufmann.
#15 - Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2018
Season 45 - Episode 26 - Aired 8/17/2018
Enjoy the world-renowned Vienna Philharmonic’s annual open-air concert from Austria’s Imperial Schönbrunn Palace, featuring conductor Valery Gergiev and internationally acclaimed soprano Anna Netrebko as a guest soloist.
#16 - She Loves Me
Season 45 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/20/2017
Two feuding store clerks find solace in each other as anonymous romantic pen pals.
#17 - Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn
Season 45 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/24/2017
The festive Roundabout Theatre Company production of Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn - The Broadway Musical comes to PBS Friday, November 24 at 9 p.m. (check local listings). The musical continues the Great Performances marathon within the Broadway’s Best lineup on PBS.
#18 - The Moody Blues: Days of Future Passed Live
Season 45 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/25/2017
The Moody Blues perform the ``Days of Future Passed'' album in its entirety in Toronto.
#19 - The Cleveland Orchestra Centennial Celebration
Season 46 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/11/2019
Great Performances: The Cleveland Orchestra Centennial Celebration commemorates the centennial of the orchestra’s founding with a gala concert conducted by music director Franz Welser-Möst featuring works touching on more than a century of Viennese musical traditions. World-renowned, Grammy-nominated pianist Lang Lang joins the orchestra in a special performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24. The concert also features “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” (The Woman Without a Shadow), Symphonic Fantasy by Richard Strauss and Maurice Ravel’s viscerally cataclysmic “La Valse (The Waltz),” which dramatically evokes the changing artistic worlds between the 19th and 20th centuries.
#20 - Julie Andrews: Back on Broadway
Season 24 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/25/1995
#21 - Orphée et Eurydice from Lyric Opera of Chicago
Season 46 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/18/2019
Reimagine Christoph Willibald Gluck’s enduringly popular opera based on the famous Greek myth. From Lyric Opera of Chicago in collaboration with the Joffrey Ballet. Starring Dmitry Korchak, Andriana Chuchman and Lauren Snouffer.
#22 - Great Performances at the Met: La Donna del Lago
Season 42 - Episode 21 - Aired 8/2/2015
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.
#23 - Now Hear This "Handel: Italian Style"
Season 47 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/11/2019
#24 - Romeo & Juliet
Season 48 - Episode 17 - Aired 4/23/2021
An original film for television by the National Theatre. Shakespeare Theatre Company Artistic Director Simon Godwin directs a film interpretation of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" set in modern-day Italy. Starring Josh O’Connor as Romeo and Jessie Buckley as Juliet.