The BEST episodes of Great Performances season 40
Every episode of Great Performances season 40, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Great Performances season 40!
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 - Great Performances at the Met: Siegfried
Season 40 - Episode 5 - Aired 9/13/2012
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Season 40 - Episode 24 - Aired 7/28/2013
Eric Owens hosts a new production of ``Parsifal,'' Wagner's final masterpiece.
#3 - Great Performances at the Met: Giulio Cesare
Season 40 - Episode 27 - Aired 8/31/2013
#4 - Great Performances at the Met: Francesca da Rimini
Season 40 - Episode 26 - Aired 8/18/2013
#5 - Dancing at Jacob's Pillow: Never Stand Still
Season 40 - Episode 23 - Aired 7/26/2013
Archival footage, performances and interviews with choreographers and dancers at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Mass.
#6 - Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night 2013
Season 40 - Episode 25 - Aired 8/2/2013
Lorin Maazel conducts the Vienna Philharmonic's spring concert saluting Richard Wagner and Giuseppi Verdi; featuring tenor Michael Schade.
#7 - Great Performances at the Met: Maria Stuarda
Season 40 - Episode 22 - Aired 7/14/2013
The Metropolitan Opera's first-ever production of Gaetano Donizetti's historical opera ``Maria Stuarda'' stars Joyce DiDonato as Mary, Queen of Scots.
#8 - Great Performances at the Met: Les Troyens
Season 40 - Episode 21 - Aired 6/30/2013
Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads a rare revival of Berlioz’s epic Les Troyens, based on Virgil’s Aeneid. Bryan Hymel stars as Aeneas, the Trojan hero. Deborah Voigt sings Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess who tries to warn her countrymen of the dangers about to befall them, and Susan Graham makes her Met role debut as Dido, the Carthaginian queen who gives her heart to Aeneas with disastrous consequences.
#9 - Great Performances at the Met: Aida
Season 40 - Episode 20 - Aired 6/9/2013
Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska made a spectacular Met debut as Aida, the enslaved Ethiopian princess, opposite two major Met stars: tenor Roberto Alagna as the war hero Radamès and Olga Borodina as the pharaoh’s daughter Amneris, Aida’s formidable rival. George Gagnidze sings Amonasro, Aida’s cunning father, and Štefan Kocán is the imposing Egyptian priest Ramfis. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi conducts his first company performances of the opera.
#10 - Great Performances at the Met: Rigoletto
Season 40 - Episode 19 - Aired 5/17/2013
Director Michael Mayer makes his Metropolitan Opera debut with Verdi's "Rigoletto," a new production that moves the setting of the story to the Las Vegas strip circa 1960.
#11 - Great Performances at the Met: Un Ballo in Maschera
Season 40 - Episode 18 - Aired 5/12/2013
#12 - Great Performances at the Met: La Clemenza di Tito
Season 40 - Episode 17 - Aired 5/5/2013
#13 - The Paul Taylor Dance Company in Paris
Season 40 - Episode 16 - Aired 5/3/2013
#14 - Great Performances at the Met: The Tempest
Season 40 - Episode 15 - Aired 4/14/2013
#15 - Great Performances at the Met: Otello
Season 40 - Episode 14 - Aired 3/31/2013
For this production of Verdi’s Shakespearean tragedy Otello starring Johan Botha in the title role and Renée Fleming as Otello’s innocent wife, Desdemona, and Falk Struckmann as the villainous Iago. Semyon Bychkov, who led an acclaimed run of performances featuring Botha and Fleming in the 2007-08 season, again conducts the opera, regarded by many critics as Verdi’s dramatic masterpiece.
#16 - Andrea Bocelli: Love in Portofino
Season 40 - Episode 13 - Aired 3/2/2013
#17 - Great Performances at the Met: L'Elisir d'Amore
Season 40 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/18/2013
Anna Netrebko is Adina in Donizetti's "L'Elisir d'Amore."
#18 - Paul Simon's Graceland Journey
Season 40 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/4/2013
#19 - Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy
Season 40 - Episode 10 - Aired 1/1/2013
#20 - From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration 2013
Season 40 - Episode 9 - Aired 1/1/2013
#21 - Magical Mystery Tour Revisited
Season 40 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/14/2012
#22 - Rod Stewart: Merry Christmas, Baby
Season 40 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/24/2012
#23 - Great Performances at the Met: Gotterdammerung
Season 40 - Episode 6 - Aired 9/14/2012
#24 - Great Performances at the Met: Die Walkure
Season 40 - Episode 4 - Aired 9/12/2012