WXXI TV

A long-standing annual event, Great Performances presents the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra’s summer night concert from Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace Gardens

Great Performances: Vienna Philharmonic Summer Night Concert 2024 airs Tuesday, August 23 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Focusing on popular works from the 19th and 20th centuries that highlight Europe’s rich musical heritage, the concert celebrates the bicentennial of distinguished Czech composer Bedřich Smetana with three musical compositions. 

The orchestra is led for the second time by Andris Nelsons, Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, with internationally acclaimed soprano Lise Davidsen as guest soloist, who performs arias from Richard Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” and Giuseppe Verdi’s “La forza del destino.”

This six-part series weaves Europe’s greatest masterpieces into an entertaining and inspiring story.

Rick Steves Art of Europe airs Saturdays, July 20 through August 24 at 3 p.m. on WXXI-TV

From prehistoric cave paintings to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome; through a thousand years of Middle Ages to the Renaissance; and from extravagant Baroque to the tumultuous 20th century, we’ll see how Europe’s art both connects us to the past and points the way forward.

Episodes + descriptions

Stone Age to Ancient Greece airs Saturday, July 20
As the Ice Age glaciers melted, European civilization was born—and with it, so was art. From the Stone Age came prehistoric art: mysterious tombs, mighty megaliths, and vivid cave paintings. Then the Egyptians and the Greeks laid the foundations of Western art—creating a world of magical gods, massive pyramids, sun-splashed temples, and ever-more-lifelike statues.

Ancient Rome airs Saturday, July 27
The Romans gave Europe its first taste of a common culture—and awe-inspiring art. From its groundbreaking architecture to its statues, mosaics, and frescos, Rome engineered bigger and better than anyone before. At its peak, the Roman Empire was a society of unprecedented luxury, with colossal arenas for entertaining the masses and giant monuments to egotistical emperors. And then it fell.

The Middle Ages airs Saturday, August 3
After Rome fell, Europe spent a thousand years in its Middle Ages. Its art shows how the light of civilization flickered in monasteries and on Europe’s fringes: Christian Byzantium, Moorish Spain, and pagan Vikings. Then, around A.D. 1000, Europe rebounded. The High Middle Ages brought majestic castles, radiant Gothic cathedrals, and exquisite art that dazzled the faithful and the secular alike.

The Renaissance airs Saturday, August 10
Around 1400, Europe rediscovered the aesthetics of ancient Greece and Rome. This rebirth of classical culture showed itself in the statues, paintings, and architecture of Florence, then spread to Spain, Holland, Germany, and beyond. The Renaissance—from art-loving popes to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and Michelangelo’s David—celebrated humanism and revolutionized how we think about our world.

Baroque airs Saturday, August 17
In the 1600s and 1700s, the art of “divine” kings and popes—and of revolutionaries and Reformers—tells the story of a Europe in transition. In the Catholic south, Baroque bubbled over with fanciful decoration and exuberant emotion. In the Protestant north, art was more sober and austere. And in France, the excesses of godlike kings gave way to revolution, Napoleon, and cerebral Neoclassicism.

The Modern Age airs Saturday, August 24
In the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution spawned new artistic styles: idealized Romanticism, light-chasing Impressionism, sensuous Art Nouveau. Then Europe’s tumultuous 20th century inspired rule-breaking art as exciting as the times: from Expressionism and Cubism to Surrealism to Abstract. The genius of artists like Van Gogh, Picasso, and Dalí express the complexity of our modern world.

The true story of William Randolph Hearst. The man who controlled the largest media empire in the country with 28 newspapers, a movie studio, a syndicated wire service, radio stations, and 13 magazines.

Citizen Hearst: An American Experience Special, Part One airs Thursday, August 8 at 8 p.m. on WXXI-TV. Part two airs August 15.

Citizen Hearst follows how William Heart used his communications stronghold to achieve political power unprecedented in the industry, then ran for office himself. A man of prodigious appetites and the model for Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane, his castle, San Simeon, was a monument to his extravagance. While married to his wife Millicent, with whom he had five sons, he also conducted a decades-long affair with actress Marion Davies, his companion until death. By the time Hearst died in 1951 at the age of 88, he had forever transformed the role of media in American life and politics. Based on The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst, David Nasaw’s critically acclaimed biography.

Experience Shakespeare’s comedic masterpiece from the Public Theater’s Shakespeare in the Park set in South Harlem telling the story of the trickster Falstaff and the wily wives who outwit him in a celebration of Black joy, laughter and vitality. 

Great Performances: Merry Wives airs Sunday, August 4 at 1 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Recorded in the summer of 2021 at The Public Theater’s beloved Free Shakespeare in the Park, Great Performances presents playwright Jocelyn Bioh’s critically acclaimed adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedic spinoff “The Merry Wives of Windsor.” Directed by The Public’s Associate Artistic Director and Resident Director Saheem Ali, the production is set in South Harlem where immigrants of the West African diaspora are living side-by-side with their African American neighbors. A New York story about tricks of the heart, featuring the Bard’s most beloved comedic characters, this farce tells the story of the charlatan Falstaff and the wily wives who outwit him in a celebration of Black joy, laughter and vitality. Stars Jacob Ming-Trent as Falstaff, Pascale Armand as Madam Ekua Page and Susan Kelechi Watson as Madam Nkechi Ford.

This film examines one of America’s most racially complicated cities as it confronts its past whilst building its future.

A Boston (R)Evolution airs Tuesday, August 13 at 10 p.m. on WXXI-TV

 When Kim Janey, a Black woman, is catapulted to the position of acting mayor, she breaks a 200-year history of white men in the city’s top seat. Boston’s traditional old-school politics are further challenged when the top candidates in the historic 2021 mayoral race are four non-white women. 

The film paints a unique portrait of an American city that continues to evolve. It reveals a side of Boston heretofore unseen in mainstream media. A Boston (R)Evolution is a tight and fast-paced documentary that asks if America’s bedrock city can finally confront its past.

A Boston (R)Evolution connects the dots between Boston’s racially complicated past and Kim Janey’s appointment as acting mayor in 2021 to the subsequent historical mayoral election later that year, which resulted in Mayor Michelle Wu’s victory. Using historical footage, expert interviews, and personal narratives, the film contrasts Mel King’s 1983 mayoral campaign with the recent race in which the top candidates are four non-white women, and also considers the impact of the 1970s busing crisis on Boston’s present.

Dive into the life and legacy of Amy Beach the iconic female composer.

Composer: Amy Beach airs Friday, August 9 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV. Repeats Saturday, August 1- at 4 p.m.

Amy Cheney Beach was born September 5, 1867, in Henniker, New Hampshire. A child prodigy, she would become one of the most respected and accomplished American musical composers of her time. Beach debuted as a pianist at 17 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. At age 23, with no formal training, she began composing her acclaimed “Gaelic Symphony.

Featuring interviews with historians and musicians – and excerpts from some of Beach’s pieces – Composer: Amy Beach chronicles a remarkable life and career that has inspired generations.

In 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, her commissioned choral piece premiered at the opening of the Women’s Pavilion. Throughout her career, she wrote hymns, chamber music, a mass, a piano concerto, an opera, and a robust collection of more than 150 songs. A pioneering composer, pianist and teacher, Beach was a national symbol of women’s creative power and helped redefine the role of women in music.

A young filmmaker discovers a treasure trove of family artifacts and unravels mysteries surrounding her visionary great-grandfather.

Beyond the Bolex airs Sunday, May 18 at 7 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the PBS app.

Beyond the Bolex shines a light on the life of Jacques Bolsey and his invention of the revolutionary Bolex camera which helped launch the careers of famous filmmakers like Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.