Travel guru Rick Steves shares with you Iceland’s majestic landscapes and hardy culture. 

Rick Steves’ Iceland airs Saturday, October 26 at 3 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

In Reykjavik, a world capital with a small-town feel, Rick tours the endearing sights, browses for sweaters, tastes fermented shark, learns Icelandic insights with a local, and then finally takes a dip in a thermal swimming pool.

Explore the making of San Francisco Opera’s “Girls of the Golden West,” which tells the turbulent story of the California Gold Rush.

Great Performances “Land of Gold” airs Friday, November 1 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

With the opera’s title referencing Puccini’s 1910 romantic opera “The Girl of the Golden West,” Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams and famed director Peter Sellars’ opera tells a harsher and more complex story through the letters of writer Louise Clappe who lived in a miners’ settlement in 1850. Spotlighting the behind-the-scenes action during the opera’s rehearsal process, the documentary highlights the creative process as actors and creative team grapple with the historical significance of the material and bringing it to the stage. Two stories are told: One on stage in the present day, and one in the past through the opera. Soprano Julia Bullock stars in the opera as Louise Clappe with mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges as Josefa Segovia, two women among the many men caught up in the quest for wealth in the lawless mountains.

An international cast joins the New York Philharmonic for the American premiere of “Émigré,” a semi-staged oratorio that tells an unusual story of Jewish refugees during World War II.

Great Performances “Émigré: A Musical Drama with the NY Philharmonic” airs Friday, October 25 at 9 p.m. on WXXI-TV.

Following the Kristallnacht pogrom of 1938, to escape the looming Nazi threat, two brothers are sent halfway around the world to Shanghai. Otto cherishes his heritage, while Josef seeks a new path, and falls in love with Lina, a Chinese woman recovering from the loss of her mother in the Nanjing Massacre.

A sweeping tale of love and loss, “Émigré” is set to music by film and concert composer Aaron Zigman with lyrics by Grammy-winning librettist Mark Campbell and additional lyrics by Brock Walsh. Long Yu conducts this New York Philharmonic co-commission with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra.

Photo: Cast members • Credit: Chris Lee

A heart-wrenching story of parental love and unspeakable sacrifice.

Letters From Brno airs Sunday, May 17 at 1 p.m. on WXXI-TV and streaming live on the WXXI app.

The powerful story of parental love and unspeakable sacrifice during the Holocaust. In an expansive 45-year search for clues to her mother’s hidden past, a daughter uncovers the tragic fate of her grandparents through their letters written during the brutal Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.