The BEST episodes of Great Performances

#1 - Oedipus Rex

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

#2 - 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.

#3 - 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.

#4 - 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.

#5 - 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.

#6 - 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.

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

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

#8 - 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.

#9 - 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.

#10 - 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.

#11 - 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.

#12 - 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.

#13 - 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.

#14 - 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.

#15 - 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.

#16 - Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2020

Season 47 - Episode 31 - Aired 6/25/2021

#17 - Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2021

Season 48 - Episode 30 - Aired 8/27/2021

#18 - Great Performances at the Met: Sondra Radvanovsky & Piotr Beczala in Concert

Season 49 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/1/2021

From the historic Stadthalle in Wuppertal, Germany, recorded in January, this world-famous soprano-tenor pair perform arias and duets from some of their many performances at the Met including Giordano’s “Andrea Chénier,” Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino,” “Luisa Miller” and Dvořák’s “Rusalka," accompanied by Vincenzo Scalera on piano.

#19 - Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2022

Season 49 - Episode 33 - Aired 8/26/2022

Enjoy the Vienna Philharmonic’s annual summer night concert with cellist Gautier Capuçon under the direction of guest conductor Andris Nelsons at Austria’s Schönbrunn Palace.

#20 - Macbeth

Season 38 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/6/2010

This production of Shakespeare's Scottish tale takes place in a 20th century military setting. It was filmed after a successful run as a stage production in London and New York.

#21 - 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.

#22 - The Hitman Returns: David Foster & Friends

Season 38 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/5/2011

#23 - Boston Symphony Orchestra: Andris Nelsons' Inaugural Concert

Season 42 - Episode 16 - Aired 5/29/2015

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.

#24 - Great Performances at the Met: Il Barbiere di Siviglia

Season 42 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/22/2015

Isabel Leonard stars as Rosina in Rossini's classic comedy ``The Barber of Seville.''

#25 - Hamilton's America

Season 44 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/21/2016

Hamilton’s America, the documentary film that brings history to vivid life through the lens of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s pop culture Broadway phenomenon Hamilton – winner of 11 Tony Awards® and the Pulitzer Prize – explodes onto THIRTEEN’s Great Performances, as the season premiere of the PBS Arts Fall Festival.