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Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera’s Meteoric Rise: “Yannick – An Artist’s Journey” on GREAT PERFORMANCES, Sept. 3 at 9 pm


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Great Performances Presents the U.S. Broadcast Premiere of New Documentary About Metropolitan Opera Music Director;

Yannick – An Artist’s Journey, September 3, 2021 at 9 pm on PBS

Features performances from “La Traviata” and “Dialogues des Carmélites,” new interviews and rehearsal footage with artists from the Met Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra and more

 

 

In 2018, young Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin stepped into one of the most high-profile roles in all of music: Music director of the Metropolitan Opera. Great Performances: Yannick – An Artist’s Journey follows Nézet-Séguin on his journey from 10-year-old budding conductor to the pinnacle of the opera world, capturing the creative process and what it means to refine the soul of an artist.

Young Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting
Young Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting

Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Susan Froemke (Great Performances: The Opera House), the cinema verité documentary explores the conductor’s roots through interviews with family members, early influences and colleagues, paired with home movies. Behind-the-scenes footage shows the maestro in rehearsal with Met Opera soprano Diana Damrau (“La Traviata”) and in coaching sessions with young artists like Gabriela Reyes.

From the Orchestre Métropolitain of Montreal to the Met in New York City to The City of Brotherly Love with Philadelphia Orchestra, which Nézet-Séguin also directs, Great Performances follow this energetic artist as he delves ever more deeply into music and the artistic collaborations that sustain him. Great Performances: Yannick – An Artist’s Journey premieres Friday, September 3 at 9 p.m. on PBS, pbs.org/gperf and the PBS Video app.

 

New York orchestra rehearsing
Photo: Dolora Zajick, Ben Bliss, Franz-Josef Selig, and Jay Hunter Morris in Richard Wagner’s “Der Fliegende Holländerr”; dress rehearsal photographed: Monday, April 17, 2017; 11:00 AM at The Metropolitan Opera; New York, NY. Photograph: © 2017 Richard Termine
PHOTO CREDIT – Richard Termine

Noteworthy Facts:

  • Yannick Nézet-Séguin is the third music director in the history of the Metropolitan Opera.
  • As music director of the Met Opera, he has conducted four recent episodes of Great Performances at the Met and also appeared in Great Performances: Beethoven in Beijing.
  • Having developed a fascination with religion and art at a very young age, Nézet-Séguin decided that he was destined to become Pope before deciding to become a conductor and devote his life to music.
  • The documentary is bookended by scenes capturing the final weeks of the Met’s 2018–19 season as Nézet-Séguin leads his cast in a performance of Poulenc’s “Dialogues des Carmélites” into which he incorporates his own religious connections and encourages the artists to follow suit.