Video Details
Great Performances
| Grade Levels: | 6 - 13+ |
|---|---|
| Core Subject(s): | Fine Arts - Dance, Fine Arts - Music, Fine Arts - Theater |
| Website: | http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/ |
| Next Airing: | Fri, Feb 24th, 2012 at 8:00 PM on KUED-HD |
Availability information for this program
GREAT PERFORMANCES, the longest-running performing arts anthology on television, continues to feature the best in the performing arts.
Episodes:
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Memphis
Winner of the 2010 Tony Award for Best New Musical, "Memphis" turns the radio dial back to the 1950s to tell the story of a white DJ named Huey Calhoun (Chad Kimball), whose love of music transcends racial lines and airwaves. His romantic interest is Felicia Farrell (Montego Glover), a young black singer whose career is on the rise, but who can't make the break out of segregated clubs on her own. When the two collaborate, her soulful sound reaches radio audiences everywhere, and the golden era of early rock & roll takes flight. But as things heat up, whether the world is really ready for their music - and their love - is put to a test. With a Tony-winning book and lyrics by Joe DiPietro ("I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change") and Tony-winning score with music by Bon Jovi founding member David Bryan, the production is directed by Christopher Ashley ("Xanadu") and choreographed by Sergio Trujillo ("Jersey Boys").
Next Airing: Fri, Feb 24th, 2012 at 8:00 PM on KUED-HD Length: 02:26:46 Usage rights: 2/24/2012 to 2/23/2016 -
Phantom of the Opera at Royal Albert Hall
In celebration of its blockbuster 25th anniversary year, Andrew Lloyd Webber and producer Cameron Mackintosh presented The Phantom of the Opera in a fully-staged, lavish production, set in the sumptuous Victorian splendor of London's Royal Albert Hall. Starring Ramin Karimloo as The Phantom, Sierra Boggess as his protege Christine Daae, and Hadley Fraser as Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, the romantic trio is backed by a complete cast and orchestra of more than 200, as well as surprise special guest appearances. Regarded by many as Lloyd Webber's masterpiece, The Phantom of the Opera first opened in 1986 at Her Majesty's Theatre, and is based on the French novel Le Fantome de l'Opera. Worldwide the show has grossed over $5.6 billion, with box office revenues higher than any film or stage play in history, including Titanic, ET and Star Wars. It has been produced in 145 cities in 27 countries and played to more than 130 million people. The show has won more than 50 major theatre awards, including seven Tonys and three Olivier Awards in the West End. It is currently showing in London, New York, Budapest, Las Vegas, and Kyoto. In 2006, it became Broadway's longest running show ever.
Next Airing: Sun, Mar 4th, 2012 at 7:00 PM on KUED-HD Length: 03:59:00 Usage rights: 3/3/2012 to 3/31/2014 -
Tony Bennett: Duets II
At age 85, the legendary Tony Bennett is the oldest person to have reached the number one position on Billboard's Hot 200 chart with the release of another album of duets -- which, amazingly enough, also marks Bennett's first number one album. Yet another career triumph, Duets 2 teams Bennett with a diverse roster of contemporary stars, including Queen Latifah, Aretha Franklin, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Andrea Bocelli and Michael Buble, performing more classics from the Great American Songbook, including "Body and Soul," "The Lady Is a Tramp," "On the Sunny Side of the Street," "Speak Low" and "Stranger in Paradise."
Next Airing: Tue, Mar 6th, 2012 at 9:00 PM on KUED-HD Length: 01:26:46 Usage rights: 1/27/2012 to 2/23/2014 -
Jackie Evancho: Dream with Me In Concert
Recorded on the grounds of the spectacular John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, this special marks the solo concert debut of the 10-year-old girl with the extraordinary soprano voice. Already familiar to national audiences from her debut appearances on America's Got Talent, this astonishing vocal sensation is the youngest star in GREAT PERFORMANCES's recent Hitman Returns: David Foster & Friends concert, performing virtuoso interpretations of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Pie Jesu" and Puccini's "O Mio Babbino Caro. " Foster returns as co-host of the concert, also serving as music director. Among the performance highlights are "When You Wish Upon A Star," "Nella Fantasia," "Nessun Dorma," "Angel," "Somewhere," "All I Ask Of You," "Ombra Mai Fu," "Imaginer," "To Believe," and "Dream With Me."
Next Airing: Sat, Mar 17th, 2012 at 7:00 PM on KUED-HD Length: 00:58:16 Usage rights: 6/4/2011 to 7/3/2013 -
Sondheim! The Birthday Concert
From his early years under the tutelage of friend and mentor Oscar Hammerstein II and continuing through the groundbreaking productions of his later career, Stephen Sondheim has been a singular voice in the American musical theater, a true original in the pantheon of major American songwriters and composers. Beginning with his collaborations as lyricist on such fabled shows as West Side Story and Gypsy, to his breakthrough scores for Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, and Into the Woods, Sondheim led the way from Broadway's golden age into the increasingly ambivalent times of America's post-Vietnam, rock 'n' roll culture. Performed on the occasion of Sondheim's 80th birthday in March 2010, GREAT PERFORMANCES presents the New York Philharmonic's gala all-star salute to a true Broadway legend. Hosted by David Hyde Pierce, gathering to celebrate are such acclaimed Sondheim alumni as Laura Benanti, Michael Cerveris, Victoria Clark, Jason Danieley, Joanna Gleason, Nathan Gunn, George Hearn, Patti LuPone, Marin Mazzie, Audra McDonald, Donna Murphy, Karen Olivo and dancers from the current West Side Story revival, Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Elaine Stritch and Chip Zien. Longtime Sondheim music director Paul Gemignani conducts.
Next Airing: Thu, Mar 22nd, 2012 at 11:00 PM on KUED-HD Length: 01:56:46 Usage rights: 11/24/2010 to 11/23/2013 -
The Thomashefskys: Music and Memories of a Life in the Yiddish Theater
Bringing to life the words and music of the American Yiddish theater, the lead characters -- Bessie and Boris Thomashefsky (the grandparents of San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas) emigrated to America from Eastern Europe in the 1880s. While in their teens, they began to play major roles in New York's Yiddish theater. For Jewish immigrants on the lower East Side of Manhattan, the theater was central to their lives, and provided a stage for the new ideas that were shaping the transition to an American way of life. In "The Thomashefskys," Tilson Thomas serves as guide through the lives and repertoire of his grandparents. Performed at the New World Symphony's spectacular new Frank Gehry-designed home in Miami, Tilson Thomas shares the stage with a 30-piece orchestra and ensemble cast to bring the repertoire and words of Bessie and Boris to life. With time, aspects of klezmer and cantorial sounds became more integrated and more American, as Jewish composers became immersed in their new surroundings, greatly influencing composers like Irving Berlin and George Gershwin.
Next Airing: Thu, Mar 29th, 2012 at 7:00 PM on KUED-HD Length: 01:56:46 Usage rights: 3/29/2012 to 3/28/2015 -
San Francisco Symphony at 100
In 2011-12, the San Francisco Symphony will celebrate its centennial season. From the ashes of the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 rose the passionate desire of a community to embrace music and build an orchestra to restore its spirit. Thus the San Francisco Symphony was born a few years later, and it has spanned the past century to become a cultural gem in one of the most interesting and progressive cities in America and the world. In September 2011, GREAT PERFORMANCES partnered with the Symphony for a centennial gala concert program hosted by acclaimed writer and San Francisco native Amy Tan, featuring SFS Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas along with guest artists Itzhak Perlman and Lang Lang performing works by Copland, Mendelssohn and Britten. Concert footage is interwoven with short video stories highlighting unique moments in the Symphony's history as well as interviews with the performers and luminaries in the audience.
Next Airing: Fri, Mar 30th, 2012 at 8:00 PM on KUED-HD Length: 01:56:46 Usage rights: 3/30/2012 to 3/29/2015 -
From Vienna: The New Year's Celebration 2012
Continuing its longstanding holiday tradition, GREAT PERFORMANCES returns to the stately splendor of Vienna's Musikverein for its annual New Year's Day celebration with the Vienna Philharmonic, under the direction of guest conductor Mariss Jansons. The venerable concert is the largest worldwide event in classical music reaching over a billion people annually through radio and television in 72 countries. The Vienna Philharmonic's traditional New Year's program showcases Viennese musical culture at the highest level.
Length: 01:26:45 Usage rights: 1/1/2012 to 6/30/2012 -
Herbie Hancock, Gustavo Dudamel and the LA Phil Celebrate Gershwin
GREAT PERFORMANCES re-teams with the LA Phil and its music director Gustavo Dudamel for a third opening night gala concert showcasing the bravura conducting style and interpretive gifts that has made Dudamel an international sensation. The concert's all-Gershwin repertoire will include "An American in Paris," "Rhapsody in Blue" and a solo performance of "Someone to Watch Over Me," spotlighting the virtuoso jazz piano of special guest Herbie Hancock.
Length: 00:56:16 Usage rights: 5/28/2012 to 5/5/2015 -
Hugh Laurie: Let Them Talk - A Celebration of New Orleans Blues
An American favorite from his role in the hit TV series "House," the versatile British actor Hugh Laurie showcases his musical side in an atmospheric special filmed on location in New Orleans. Defying simple categorization, Laurie finds his greatest satisfaction and inspiration from the mixture of blues and jazz that grew out of New Orleans at the beginning of the last century. "Let Them Talk" is his very personal journey into the heart and soul of that music. Also including documentary and interview segments during Laurie's travels around the city, the program features his performances with blues legends Dr. John, Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas, as well as another fellow countryman similarly inspired by this uniquely American music, Sir Tom Jones. With concert sequences filmed at the historic Latrobe's building in the French Quarter, the musical selections will include New Orleans blues standards along with some forgotten and neglected gems.
Length: 00:56:17 Usage rights: 9/30/2011 to 9/29/2014 -
Let Me Down Easy
Called "the most exciting individual in American theater" by Newsweek magazine, Anna Deavere Smith (The West Wing, Nurse Jackie) turns her theatrical exploration to matters of the human body with Let Me Down Easy. As in her acclaimed earlier plays Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, Deavere Smith interviews an eclectic range of people, and then performs as the interviewee in their own words. This new gallery of indelible portraits ranges from boldface names like cyclist Lance Armstrong, supermodel Lauren Hutton and Texas Governor Ann Richards, to lesser known but equally memorable characters including a rodeo bull rider, a New Orleans hospital doctor and the director of a South African orphanage -- all sharing their searing experiences in confronting the price and politics of health, facing the end of life, and encountering the ultimate resilience of the human spirit. The performances was recorded at Washington DC's Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater.
Length: 01:56:46 Usage rights: 1/13/2012 to 1/12/2015