Seasons & episodes

S42 · E5American Voices with Renée Fleming 2015-01-09＋

World-renowned American opera singer Renée Fleming convenes a festival of special guests to celebrate the diverse range of America’s vocal artistry. Young artists receive mentoring from respected singers including Ben Folds, Dianne Reeves, Sutton Foster, Eric Owens, Kim Burrell and Alison Krauss. Also see performances by Josh Groban, Sara Bareilles and Norm Lewis.

S42 · E6GP at the Met: Le Nozze di Figaro 2015-01-16＋

The season nine premiere of Great Performances at the Met is Mozart’s elegant masterpiece of marital discord, Le Nozze di Figaro, conducted by Met Music Director James Levine and staged by Richard Eyre. Ildar Abdrazakov sings the title role, Marlis Petersen plays Figaro’s quick-witted bride-to-be, Susanna, and Peter Mattei is Count Almaviva.

S42 · E7Macbeth 2015-02-01＋

Director Rupert Goold's gripping stage production of Macbeth, set in a nameless 20th-century militaristic society and starring Sir Patrick Stewart in his Tony-nominated performance as the ambitious general, and Kate Fleetwood as his coldly scheming wife, has been rethought in vivid filmic terms.

S42 · E8Great Performances at the Met: Carmen 2015-02-22＋

Acclaimed director Richard Eyre’s production of Carmen stars Georgian mezzo-soprano Anita Rachvelishvili in the title role of the seductive gypsy, a part she has sung to acclaim at many of the world’s leading opera houses. Aleksandrs Antonenko sings the obsessed soldier Don José. Pablo Heras-Casado conducts.

S42 · E9La Dolce Vita: The Music of Italian Cinema 2015-02-27＋

Conducted by Alan Gilbert, selections include music by Nino Rota, Ennio Morricone, Luis Bacalov, performed by the New York Philharmonic and featuring Joshua Bell, Renée Fleming and Josh Groban. The concert includes video projection with animated graphics and film clips related to the films La Dolce Vita, Cinema Paradiso, Once Upon a Time in the West, Il Postino and more.

S42 · E10Bryan Adams in Concert 2015-03-01＋

Canadian born singer-songwriter Bryan Adams has been one of the most successful international performers in contemporary rock music, selling over 65 million records in a career that has spanned more than three decades. Filmed at Toronto’s Elgin Theater in July 2014, songs in this concert include “Here I Am,” “Summer of ‘69,” “Heaven,” and “Straight from the Heart.”

S42 · E11Great Performances at the Met: Il Barbiere di Siviglia 2015-03-22＋

Rossini’s classic comedy Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville) features some of the most instantly recognizable melodies in all of opera. The dynamic young cast includes Lawrence Brownlee; Isabel Leonard; and Christopher Maltman in his first Met performances of Figaro, the title barber whose skills extend far beyond hair-cutting.

S42 · E12Mark Morris Dance Group: L'Allegro 2015-03-27＋

Choreographer Mark Morris’s signature work comes to television for the first time, hosted by Mikhail Baryshnikov. Morris garnered international fame for this piece, set to George Frideric Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with poetry by Milton. This performance was filmed July 2014 at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain.

S42 · E13Annie Lennox: Nostalgia Live in Concert 2015-04-03＋

The concert of her Grammy-nominated album features Lennox’s takes on iconic American compositions by such artists as Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Billie Holiday and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, as she pays tribute to some of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

S42 · E14Great Performances at the Met: Meistersinger 2015-04-12＋

James Levine leads Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (“The Master-Singer of Nuremberg”) in its first Great Performances at the Met broadcast. Michael Volle is the cobbler-poet Hans Sachs, starring with Johan Botha as Walther, Annette Dasch as Eva, Johannes Martin Kränzle as Beckmesser, Hans-Peter König as Pogner, Paul Appleby as David, and Karen Cargill as Magdalene. Renée Fleming hosts.

S42 · E15Great Performances at the Met: Les Contes d'Hoffmann 2015-04-17＋

Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo stars as the tortured poet unlucky in love in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann on Great Performances at the Met. Offenbach based the opera on three stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann. The production is by Broadway director Bartlett Sher. Soprano Deborah Voigt hosts the broadcast.

S42 · E16Boston Symphony Orchestra: Andris Nelsons' Concert 2015-05-29＋

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.

S42 · E17Great Performances at the Met: The Merry Widow 2015-06-19＋

The lavish new staging of Lehár’s effervescent operetta The Merry Widow is the Met debut of Broadway director and choreographer Susan Stroman. Soprano Renée Fleming adds a new character to her Met repertory as Hanna, the rich widow. Sir Andrew Davis conducts the cast that also includes baritone Nathan Gunn as Danilo; tenor Alek Shrader; baritone Sir Thomas Allen; and Broadway star Kelli O’Hara.

Polish film director Mariusz Treliński makes his Met debut with the new production, inspired by noir films of the 1940s. Valery Gergiev conducts the two rarely performed one-acts: Tchaikovsky’s lyrical fairy tale Iolanta and Bartók’s harrowing Bluebeard’s Castle. Iolanta stars Anna Netrebko, Piotr Beczala and Aleksei Markov. Bluebeard's Castle stars Nadja Michael and Mikhail Petrenko.

S42 · E19Driving Miss Daisy 2015-07-17＋

Alfred Uhry’s classic play is a searing, funny, and hopeful meditation on race relations in America, told through the complex relationship between two of popular culture’s most enduring characters. Daisy Werthan (Angela Lansbury) is a widowed, 72-year-old Jewish woman living in midcentury Atlanta, and Hoke Colburn (James Earl Jones) is an African American man who works as her chauffeur.

S42 · E20Dudamel Conducts a John Williams Celebration With the LA Phil 2015-07-24＋

Natalie Portman hosts Dudamel Conducts a John Williams Celebration with the LA Phil on Great Performances. Itzhak Perlman is the special guest in a gala opening night concert paying tribute to the prolific film composer. The Los Angeles Philharmonic Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel conducts.

S42 · E21Great Performances at the Met: La Donna Del Lago 2015-08-02＋

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.

S42 · E22Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2015 2015-08-28＋

Led by guest conductor Zubin Mehta, the world-renowned Vienna Philharmonic returns for its 12th open-air summer concert, this time with a distinctly Scandinavian flavor, in the magnificent gardens of Austria’s Imperial Schönbrunn Palace. The varied program includes favorites by Grieg, Sibelius and Lumbye. The concert soloist is the internationally acclaimed Austrian piano virtuoso Rudolf Buckbinder.

Sir David McVicar directs the first new Met production of the popular verismo double bill in 45 years: Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci, both with Marcelo Álvarez as the male lead. Eva-Maria Westbroek and Patricia Racette also star. Met Principal Conductor Fabio Luisi leads the operas, both set in Sicily - one in a 1900 village square, the other at a 1948 truck stop. Check local listings.

S43 · E1Billy Elliot: The Musical 2015-10-23＋

The hit musical both on Broadway and in London’s West End was recorded for broadcast at the show's West End home, the Victoria Palace Theatre, where it is still playing. Billy Elliot the Musical Live features Liam Mower as Older Billy (he was the first boy ever to play Billy Elliot on stage in 2005). Also, 25 current and former Billy Elliots unite on stage for a number. With a score by Elton John.

S43 · E2Chita Rivera: A Lot of Livin’ to Do 2015-11-06＋

A retrospective of Broadway legend Chita Rivera. Luminaries Dick Van Dyke, John Kander, Carol Lawrence, Ben Vereen, and others pay tribute to the dynamic singer, dancer, and actress. Anita in “West Side Story,” Rosie in “Bye Bye Birdie,” Velma in “Chicago,” — these are just some of the iconic roles created by Rivera. Also see newly filmed songs from Rivera’s concert repertoire.

S43 · E3Andrea Bocelli: Cinema 2015-11-27＋

The international superstar tenor Andrea Bocelli lends his unique voice to a lush symphonic salute to the movies, celebrating some of the greatest celluloid songs and scores of all time written by Italian and Hollywood composers. Hollywood luminaries John Travolta, Ryan O’Neal, Ali MacGraw, and Andy Garcia join Bocelli onstage to speak about the films from which the songs derive.

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.

S43 · E5Great Performances at the Met: Il Trovatore 2016-01-22＋

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.