The BEST episodes of Great Performances

#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.

#2 - Great Performances at the Met: Iphigénie en Tauride

Season 38 - Episode 15 - Aired 5/29/2011

#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.

#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.

#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.

#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.

#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.

#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.

#9 - Great Performances at the Met: Elektra

Season 43 - Episode 15 - Aired 9/18/2016

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts patrice Chéreau’s acclaimed staging of Elektra, with Nina Stemme in the title role on Great Performances at the Met

#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.

#11 - Oedipus Rex

Season 21 - Episode 15 - Aired 5/26/1993

#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.

#13 - Great Performances at the Met: Norma

Season 45 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/26/2018

Conducted by Carlo Rizzi, Bellini's ``Norma'' features Sondra Radvanovsky, Joyce DiDonato and Joseph Calleja.

#14 - Now Hear This "Handel: Italian Style"

Season 47 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/11/2019

#15 - Great Performances at the Met: L’Elisir d’Amore

Season 45 - Episode 17 - Aired 4/29/2018

In Bartlett Sher’s production, the beautiful and wealthy Adina draws the attention of Nemorino, the poor but good-hearted country boy, as well as Sergeant Belcore, who immediately asks Adina to marry him. To win her love, Nemorino spends all his money on a magic elixir of love sold by the traveling “doctor” Dulcamara. Believing he is irresistible to Adina after drinking the potion, Nemorino feigns indifference, but his actions leave her surprised, hurt and ready to wed Belcore. At the wedding, a single tear on Adina’s cheek is all Nemorino needs to know her true feelings, and at long last, they confess their love for one another. Domingo Hindoyan conducts. Soprano Susanna Phillips hosts.

#16 - 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.

#17 - 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.

#18 - 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.

#19 - 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.

#20 - 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.

#21 - 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.

#22 - Julie Andrews: Back on Broadway

Season 24 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/25/1995

#23 - 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.

#24 - 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.

#25 - 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.