This captivating program combines key scenes from Mozart's singspiel The Abduction from the Seraglio as performed at the spectacular Topkapi Palace with a documentary about the intricate process of rehearsing the production. A winner of the International Broadcasting Convention's Golden Rembrandt, the program also provides fresh insights into the personal life of Mozart, the history of the Enlightenment, and life in the harem through commentary by opera director Elijah Moshinsky and Alev Lytle Croutier, author of Harem: The World Behind the Veil. Paul Groves, Yelda Kodalli, D?sir?e Rancatore, Lynton Atkinson, Peter Rose, and Oliver Tobias star. (89 minutes, color)

Theater director Sir Richard Eyre discusses dramatic realism on Broadway. Through interviews and archival footage, he explores playwrights who looked at the dark side of the American Dream, then studies musicals and their early innovators.

This program enters the world of Beijing opera through the traditional art of mask-making -- and through the eyes of 76-year-old Xiang Qi Shang, a celebrated mask maker who has devoted his life to preserving a custom that may yet be lost in China's rush to modernization. Master Xiang demonstrates his remarkable brushwork as he comments on a range of topics, including the use of facial expression to illuminate a character's personality and the application of symbolic colors to aid in audience recognition. Facial painting in Beijing opera is also discussed. (17 minutes, color)

From the birth of opera in Florence with the Camerata to the genius of Monteverdi and beyond, this program looks at how opera grew into both a form of entertainment and a a vehicle for delivering incisive social, political, and cultural messages. The operettas of Offenbach and of Gilbert and Sullivan are also considered, as is opera's maturation into a worldwide phenomenon.

Flutist James Galway discusses the renaissance of music in Elizabethan England and the madrigals popular at the time, also noting the birth of opera in Italy and early ballet in France. Several individual performers and musical groups present examples.

Flutist James Galway discusses the work, Mozart and Schubert. Sir Peter Hall examines Mozart's operas. Several individual performers and musical groups present examples including Mozart's Don Giovanni and the Requiem Mass and Schubert's piano works, chamber music and Lieder.

Taking off from the peace of nature, the singing cicadas, and the simple routines of the workday, this program explores a kaleidoscope of musical examples from Ghana: children's games and their musical bands; traditional drums; sensual dances; trance dances; animated funeral music, and other examples from the Ewe, Ashanti, Ga, and Frafra peoples of Ghana.

Flutist James Galway discusses the development of music from the early music of the Eastern churches to the birth of the secular song. Several individual performers and musical groups present examples.

Studies the evolution of pop music within the context of the youth-oriented issues of the past five decades.

Flutist James Galway discusses the most important influences on Western music at the turn of the century. Some of these influences were expanded contact with Eastern culture, the discoveries of Freud, and the accelerated pace of change. Includes works by Puccini, Mahler, Strauss, Debussy, and Schoenberg.

Flutist James Galway discusses the search for form and contrast in the works of Vivaldi, the Mannheim School and most dramatically in the works of Josef Haydn, the father of the symphony. Several performers present examples.

Flutist James Galway discusses how writing music for public performance in concert halls and theaters required composers to keep abreast of popular styles. This is best illustrated by the work of Handel: Zadok the Priest, Concerts for Organ and Orchestra in G minor, Royal Fireworks Music, extracts from The Messiah and selections from Couperin, Scarlatti and Rameau.

Flutist James Galway discusses some of the late 19th century composers who wrote music of their respective countries rather than in a particular style. Music of Dvorak, Ives, Grieg, De Falla, Vaughn Williams, Kodály, Smetana, Janacek, and Sibelius is performed.

Flutist James Galway takes the viewer back in time to demonstrate how ageless and universal is the human impulse to make music, and how logical and natural has been the development of Western music.

With a gracefulness equal to its subject, this intriguing program goes behind the scenes to film for the first time the private world of kyomai, Kyoto-style dance. Includes rare footage of the reigning master, Inoue Yachiyo IV, background on the history of kyomai, and insights into the education of geisha, chief practitioners of this centuries-old form of Japanese dance.