The BEST episodes of Great Performances season 38
Every episode of Great Performances season 38, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Great Performances season 38!
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: Iphigénie en Tauride
Season 38 - Episode 15 - Aired 5/29/2011
#2 - 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.
#3 - The Hitman Returns: David Foster & Friends
Season 38 - Episode 11 - Aired 3/5/2011
Watch Now:Amazon#4 - Great Performances at the Met: Lucia di Lammermoor
Season 38 - Episode 20 - Aired 6/26/2011
#5 - Jackie Evancho: Dream With Me in Concert
Season 38 - Episode 19 - Aired 6/6/2011
Jackie Evancho's solo concert supports her first full-length album, ''Dream With Me.''
#6 - Eric Clapton: Crossroads Guitar Festival 3 at Chicago’s Toyota Park
Season 38 - Episode 18 - Aired 6/6/2011
In June 2010, Eric Clapton gathered a veritable Who’s Who of the world’s most talented guitar players at the third Crossroads Guitar Festival, an 11-hour celebration of the six-string that attracted a sold-out crowd of more than 27,000 music fans to Chicago’s Toyota Park. All profits from this daylong display of guitar virtuosity benefited The Crossroads Centre in Antigua, a treatment and education facility Clapton founded to help people suffering from chemical dependency.
#7 - Great Performances at the Met: Nixon in China
Season 38 - Episode 17 - Aired 6/1/2011
#8 - Carnegie Hall 120th Anniversary Concert
Season 38 - Episode 16 - Aired 5/31/2011
#9 - Great Performances at the Met: Don Carlo
Season 38 - Episode 13 - Aired 4/3/2011
The Met’s production of Verdi’s grand opera, in which love, war, politics, and religion intertwine against the backdrop of the Spanish Inquisition, stars Roberto Alagna as the conflicted title character; Marina Poplavskaya as Elisabeth de Valois; Anna Smirnova as the scheming Princess Eboli; Ferruccio Furlanetto as the tormented tyrant Philip II; Simon Keenlyside as the heroic Rodrigo, Marquis of Posa; and Eric Halfvarson as the Grand Inquisitor. Critics and audiences greeted this new production and its cast with kudos: “You’ve heard about total theater? This is it.” (Variety); “A clear-cut hit… rarely have I seen an opera audience so unanimously satisfied” (Philadelphia Inquirer); and “Music so glorious not one minute seems superfluous” (Bloomberg). This production uses the five-act Italian version of Don Carlo, which includes the “Fontainebleau Act.” A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the Norwegian National Opera & Ballet, Hytner’s Don Carlo premiered in London in 2008. Hytner brought two internationally acclaimed designers to the Met for the first time with Don Carlo: set and costume designer Bob Crowley, the winner of five Tony awards for his Broadway designs, and Tony-winning lighting designer Mark Henderson who has received five Olivier Awards for his work on the London stage.
#10 - Great Performances at the Met: La Fanciulla del West
Season 38 - Episode 14 - Aired 4/24/2011
#11 - Billy Joel Live at Shea Stadium
Season 38 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/7/2011
#12 - Harry Connick Jr. in Concert on Broadway
Season 38 - Episode 10 - Aired 3/3/2011
Twenty years after dazzling audiences in his first solo Broadway concert early in his career, three-time Grammy Award-winner Harry Connick, Jr. returned to the Main Stem in a roster of favorites, performed in his trademark New Orleans style. Taped in July of 2010 at New York’s Neil Simon Theater, Harry Connick, Jr. in Concert on Broadway features Connick’s big band and a 12-piece string section, with the star on both a Steinway grand and upright honky-tonk piano. Variety raved, “Connick, in concert, packs such dynamite that those ‘Jersey Boys’ across the street seem positively sedate.” Backed by a cadre of top-flight musicians, including trombonist Lucien Barbarin, Connick performs an infectious mix of evergreen standards, original compositions, and New Orleans street music, all arranged and orchestrated by Connick. Song List: We Are in Love The Way You Look Tonight Bésame Mucho The Other Hours (from “Thou Shalt Not”) Nowhere with Love How Insensitive Come by Me Medley: My Time of Day / I’ve Never Been in Love Before All the Way Bayou Maharajah Hear Me in the Harmony Light the Way (from “Thou Shalt Not”) St. James Infirmary Blues Take Her to the Mardi Gras (from “Thou Shalt Not”) Bourbon Street Parade Mardi Gras in New Orleans
#13 - Great Performances at the Met: Boris Godunov
Season 38 - Episode 9 - Aired 2/1/2011
#14 - Celebración! Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil with Juan Diego Flórez
Season 38 - Episode 6 - Aired 12/29/2010
#15 - Sondheim! The Birthday Concert
Season 38 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/24/2010
Join us for a rousing celebration of the life and work of one of Broadway’s greatest legends – the one and only Stephen Sondheim. For the master composer and lyricist’s 80th birthday, many of musical theater’s brightest stars gathered to perform more than two dozen sensational numbers from Sondheim’s illustrious career. Many of these enduring songs are rarely heard and several are performed by the original Broadway cast members. David Hyde Pierce hosts this magical event with Stephen Sondheim’s longtime collaborator Paul Gemignani conducting the New York Philharmonic. Filmed live, March 15–16, 2010 at Avery Fisher Hall, New York City.
#16 - Chicago Symphony Orchestra: Pierre Boulez Conducts Mahler's 7th
Season 38 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/27/2010
#17 - Great Performances at the Met: Don Pasquale
Season 38 - Episode 8 - Aired 1/5/2011
#18 - From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration 2011
Season 38 - Episode 7 - Aired 1/1/2011
#19 - Renée Fleming & Dmitri Hvorostovsky: A Musical Odyssey in St. Petersburg
Season 38 - Episode 2 - Aired 9/1/2010
Soprano Renée Fleming and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky perform scenes from operas in St. Petersburg's most beautiful palaces. Between performances Fleming and Hvorostovsky visit the city's scenic wonders while boating through St. Petersburg's canals.
#20 - Vienna Philharmonic's Summer Night Concert 2010
Season 38 - Episode 1 - Aired 8/25/2010
The world-renown Vienna Philharmonic performs at Austria's beautiful Imperial Schönbrunn Palace. The evening's theme is "Moon, Planets and Stars," with selections including John Williams' "Star Wars," and Gustav Holst's "The Planets."