The BEST episodes of Great Performances season 43

#1 - Great Performances at the Met: The Pearl Fishers

Season 43 - Episode 10 - Aired 5/21/2016

Conducted by Gianandrea Noseda and directed by Penny Woolcock, Bizet’s sweeping romance tells the story of a beautiful Hindu priestess pursued by rival pearl divers competing for her hand. Diana Damrau leads the cast as the priestess Leïla, opposite Matthew Polenzani as Nadir, Mariusz Kwiecien as Zurga, and Nicolas Testé as the high priest Nourabad.

#2 - 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.

#3 - Great Performances at the Met: Madama Butterfly

Season 43 - Episode 13 - Aired 8/19/2016

Kristine Opolais brings her heartbreaking interpretation of the title role to the series for the first time. Roberto Alagna sings Lieutenant Pinkerton, the callous officer who crushes Butterfly's dreams of love. Debuting conductor Karel Mark Chichon leads a cast that includes Maria Zifchak as Suzuki and Dwayne Croft as Sharpless.

#4 - Great Performances at the Met: Il Trovatore

Season 43 - Episode 5 - Aired 1/22/2016

Soprano Anna Netrebko and tenor Yonghoon Lee make their Met role debuts in Verdi's Il Trovatore. Netrebko sings Leonora, the tortured heroine who sacrifices her own life for the love of the Gypsy troubadour, Manrico, played by Yonghoon Lee. Dmitri Hvorostovsky sings Count di Luna, Dolora Zajick sings her signature role of the gypsy Azucena, and Štefan Kocán is Ferrando. Marco Armiliato conducts.

#5 - 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

#6 - Great Performances at the Met: Lulu

Season 43 - Episode 8 - Aired 4/10/2016

Artist William Kentridge directs Alban Berg’s opera Lulu, starring German soprano Marlis Petersen as the irresistible femme fatale. One of the most important and notorious stage works of the 20th century, Lulu is the drama of a young woman who sexually and emotionally dominates a wide range of willing victims, both male and female. Welsh National Opera music director Lothar Koenigs conducts.

#7 - Joan Baez 75th Birthday Celebration

Season 43 - Episode 9 - Aired 4/28/2016

A concert with folk music legend Joan Baez and others, celebrating her birthday at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. Baez is joined on stage by stars including David Bromberg, Jackson Browne, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Judy Collins, David Crosby, Emmylou Harris, Indigo Girls, Damien Rice, Paul Simon, Mavis Staples, Nano Stern, and Richard Thompson.

#8 - From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration 2016

Season 43 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/1/2016

Julie Andrews hosts the annual New Year’s Day celebration with the Vienna Philharmonic from Vienna’s Musikverein, a beloved annual tradition. Maestro Mariss Jansons will conduct the popular concert of melodies by the Strauss Family and their contemporaries. The the Vienna Boys’ Choir and soloists of the Vienna State Ballet also perform.

#9 - Great Performances at the Met: Otello

Season 43 - Episode 6 - Aired 2/21/2016

For this production of Verdi’s tragic opera, Aleksandrs Antonenko, one of the world’s leading interpreters of Otello, sings his first Met performances of the role, opposite Sonya Yoncheva as Desdemona and Željko Lučić as the villainous Iago.

#10 - Great Performances at the Met: Tannhauser

Season 43 - Episode 7 - Aired 3/13/2016

James Levine conducts Richard Wagner’s Tannhäuser with Johan Botha on Great Performances at the Met. Eva-Maria Westbroek, Michelle DeYoung, Peter Mattei, and Gunther Groissbock also star in Otto Schenk’s classic production. Wagner’s early masterpiece Tannhäuser comes to Great Performances at the Met for the first time. It is the production’s first Met revival in more than a decade. Johan Botha makes his Met role debut in the titular role; Eva-Maria Westbroek is Elisabeth, adding another Wagner heroine to her Met repertoire after her acclaimed Sieglinde in Die Walküre; Michelle DeYoung is the love goddess Venus, which she sang in the opera’s previous revival; Peter Mattei is Wolfram; and Günther Groissböck is the Landgraf.

#11 - Great Performances at the Met: Turandot

Season 43 - Episode 11 - Aired 6/12/2016

Hear Swedish soprano Nina Stemme sing the demanding title role of Puccini’s Chinese ice princess, with Anita Hartig as the angelic slave girl Liù and Marco Berti as Calàf. Paolo Carignani conducts Franco Zeffirelli’s spectacular 1987 production.

#12 - Great Performances at the Met: Roberto Devereux

Season 43 - Episode 14 - Aired 8/28/2016

The last opera in Donizetti’s Tudor trilogy, directed by Sir David McVicar, stars Sondra Radvanovsky as Elizabeth I and features Matthew Polenzani, Elina Garanca and Mariusz Kwiecien. Maurizio Benini conducts.

#13 - Billy Elliot the Musical Live

Season 43 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/23/2015

#14 - Chita Rivera: A Lot of Livin' to Do

Season 43 - Episode 2 - Aired 11/6/2015

A retrospective of Chita Rivera's film, television and stage career, including interviews with Dick Van Dyke, Ben Vereen, Carol Lawrence and others.

#15 - Andrea Bocelli: Cinema

Season 43 - Episode 3 - Aired 11/27/2015

Tenor Andrea Bocelli pays tribute to songs from the movies; with David Foster.

#16 - Great Performances at the Met: Manon Lescaut

Season 43 - Episode 12 - Aired 8/13/2016

Hear Kristine Opolais and Roberto Alagna as the ill-fated lovers in Puccini’s passionate adaptation of the classic novel about a free-spirited country girl. Sir Richard Eyre’s new production, conducted by Fabio Luisi, is set in the 1940s.