Kirk Browning Trailers
Philadelphia Orchestra/Eugene Ormandy – Stravinsky & Rachmaninov TrailerAudra McDonald Sings the Movies for New Year's Eve TrailerThe Light in the Piazza: Live from Lincoln Center Trailer
Kirk Browning (March 28, 1921 – February 10, 2008) was an American television director and producer who had hundreds of productions to his credit, including 185 broadcasts of Live from Lincoln Center.
Born in New York City, Browning dropped out of Cornell University after attending for only one month and moved to Waco, Texas, where he was hired as a newspaper reporter. Because of a childhood injury, he was rejected by the United States Army when he tried to enlist during World War II, so he worked as an ambulance driver in England and France. In the late 1940s, he was a chicken farmer operating an egg route in Ridgefield, Connecticut when one of his customers offered him a job in the music library at NBC. The clerical position led to his directing live televised performances by the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Soon after he was made a stage manager of the network's newly formed opera company, and he later became its Director.
Most Popular Kirk Browning Trailers
Total trailers found: 76
07 November 1960
Two plays by William Saroyan portraying writers stymied, inspired, frustrated, excited, listful, wistful, slothful, awed, unnerved, perhaps corrupted and perplexed by the promise and let-down writing holds for them.
26 March 1985
Live Metropolitan Opera performance March, 1985.
31 May 1978
Donald Moffat stars in Moliere's classic comedy about lovable scoundrel Tartuffe, who befriends the wealthy Orgon and then attempts to seduce both his new friend's wife and daughter in this TV presentation from the Broadway Theatre Archive.
01 April 1989
This classic American play, performed on an almost-bare stage, is about the mundane but rather pleasant lives of the Gibbs family, the Webb family, and their neighbors in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, early in the 20th century.
27 March 1996
A televised production of The Merry Widow featuring behind the scenes content.
21 February 1980
Don Carlo (1980) Metropolitan Opera. Verdi / italian. King Philip's court is plagued by rebels, family squabbles and intrigue.
31 December 1986
Live performance from the Metropolitan Opera, 31 December 1986.
28 September 1983
This telecast offers a rare opportunity to see the legendary Joan Sutherland in the role that first catapulted her to international stardom.
01 January 1976
The classic opera is brought to life by Beverly Sills.
22 May 1982
Vladimir Horowitz's piano recital in 1982 at Royal Festival Hall in London.
16 March 1978
Imbuing the familiar Don Juan myth with a captivating combination of comedy, seductiveness, danger, and damnation, Mozart created an enduring masterpiece that has been a cornerstone of the repertory since its 1787 premiere.
14 March 1977
Puccini’s heartbreaking story of young love in the garrets of Belle Epoque Paris has attracted many famous singers through the years.
11 October 1982
Ken Talley, a Vietnam vet who lost his legs in combat, lives in a farmhouse in rural Missouri with his lover, Jed.
17 January 1979
This John Dexter production, designed by Desmond Heeley, was a parting gift to the great American soprano Beverly Sills, who bid farewell to the Met as Norina, the smart young widow at the center of Donizetti’s comedy.
10 March 1976
William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play revolves around the denizens of a San Francisco bar in 1939.
30 January 1974
In this rousing satire a native upstate New York clerk comes to 1920s Manhattan with dreams of making in big on Tin Pan Alley.
01 January 1982
Opera royalty Luciano Pavarotti brings dignity and power to the title role in this 1982 production. During a squall at sea, Idomeneo -- the king of Crete -- swears to Neptune that if the monarch survives, he'll sacrifice the first person he encounters onshore.
09 January 2000
Willy Loman, an aging, failing salesman, struggles to accept reality and his failure to achieve the American Dream.
24 April 1974
Cornelius "Con" Melody is an Irish tavern keeper in New England who lives in reverence of his former days as a nobleman and decorated officer in the British army during the Napoleonic wars.
01 December 1980
High-spirited model Hazel decides that she should settle down in this stage play based on a Dorothy Parker short story.
13 April 1982
This musical adaptation of the Studs Terkel book examines the average worker's viewpoint--showing that he or she is anything but average.
14 December 1958
The Christmas Tree is a 1958 Hallmark Hall of Fame made-for-television film that was broadcast on NBC on December 14, 1958.
08 April 1967
Joe Boyd, an aging Washington Senators fan, would sell his soul for the Senators to beat the New York Yankees and win the pennant.
25 May 1987
On the day in 1965 that the Pope visits New York and masses of people line the streets in adulation, Artie, a zookeeper living in Sunnyside, Queens, thinks it's time for his life to be blessed, too.
15 December 1988
Opera greats Luciano Pavarotti and Joan Sutherland -- one of the most acclaimed tenors and one of the most beloved sopranos of the 20th century -- take the stage at the Met for a gala evening of opera scenes with special guest Leo Nucci.
03 November 1976
Performed at the Lincoln Center. Conducted by Sarah Caldwell. The staging and costuming explicitly telegraphed the characters.
07 November 1977
A Victor Hugo play, haunting and scandalous, provided the inspiration for Verdi’s mid-career masterpiece.
02 November 1990
A Danish prince and university student avenges his father's murder by his uncle, who stole the crown and married his mother.
30 April 1975
Dramatist Luigi Pirandello's mordant comedy of manners tells the tale of upper-crust Italians Silia Gala and her sneering spouse, Leone, who finds his impassivity tested when he has to duel his wife's frustrated paramour.
10 November 1976
San Francisco's prize-winning American Conservatory Theater's rowdy commedia dell'arte production incorporates slapstick, pratfall and earthy humor into William Shakespeare's comedy about the two unmarried daughters of a wealthy Italian merchant.
25 April 1982
A record of McKellen's one-man Broadway show about the Bard.
01 January 1981
While the rest of the Hebrews bewail their fate, Samson alone trusts in God's promise of liberty. Abimelech, the Philistine satrap of Gaza, enters to mock the Hebrews' God, proclaiming the superiority of Dagon, and the Hebrews are afraid of him.
06 January 1975
Russell B. Parker, a former vaudeville hoofer, is a man of big dreams but small ambitions. He hardly works at all in fact, often spending the time incessantly playing checkers with his friend, William Jenkins.
03 November 1951
The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Broadcast #6 was of a concert on November 3, 1951 from Carnegie Hall, featuring the Overture to Carl Maria von Weber's Euryanthe and Brahms's Symphony No.
26 January 1978
Piano Vladimir Horowitz in a televised recital from the White House on 26 January 1978, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his US debut, at the invitation of President & Mrs Carter.
31 December 2006
Broadway and concert star Audra McDonald rings in the new year with a program of cherished song standards by Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, and others, backed by members of the New York Philharmonic conducted by Ted Sperling.
04 February 1957
Mayerling is the name of a notorious Austrian village linked to a romantic tragedy. At a royal hunting lodge there, in 1889, Crown Prince Rudolf--desperate over his father's command to put away his teenage mistress, the Baroness Marie Vetsera--shot her to death and killed himself.
24 December 1951
The historic, original, live airing of what would become an annual Christmas tradition throughout the 1950s, this opera tells the story of Amahl, a crippled shepherd boy, and his destitute mother, who provide temporary shelter to three men who are following a star to the newly-born Christ child.
01 January 1988
A true story about one US and one USSR delegate who, during 1982 talks in Geneva between USA and USSR on limiting medium-range nukes in Europe, met by accident in a nearby forest while on a stroll and informally started a key discussion.
29 December 1951
The historic Toscanini television concerts with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Broadcast #7 was of a concert on December 29, 1951 from Carnegie Hall, featuring music from Wagner's operas.
11 April 1969
Thirty distinguished astronomers are visited at their observatories throughout the world in this comprehensive report of astronomical theories, research, and discoveries.
05 April 1978
Plácido Domingo accomplishes the rare feat of singing both leads on the same night at the Met in 1978 on opera's most popular double-bill.
17 December 1983
Verdi's early masterpiece is based on a Victor Hugo play with a complicated plot concerning a young woman and the three men vying for her affections—her elderly uncle, a king destined to become Holy Roman Emperor, and a bandit who is actually an overthrown nobleman.
25 December 1963
One night in Judea, a disabled shepherd boy-turned-beggar and his mother are visited by three strangers.
02 March 1981
The incomparable Luciano Pavarotti at his most eloquent brings Donizetti’s Nemorino to live as only he can, combining vocal fireworks, personal charisma, and charm.
17 March 1976
This concert film made in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles in 1976 captures a memorable performance conducted by the doyen of American composers, Aaron Copland.
15 December 1991
Antony and Cleopatra is an opera in three acts by American composer Samuel Barber. The libretto was prepared by Franco Zeffirelli.
01 January 1983
In celebration of its 100th anniversary in 1983, the Metropolitan Opera hosts a four-hour performance uniting some of the world's most spellbinding opera singers and conductors.
10 June 1992
This program features the music of Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim in a 1992 performance at Carnegie Hall.
01 April 1987
The Franco Zeffirelli production of Puccini's "Turandot", recorded live at the Metropolitan Opera in April, 1987.
22 March 1991
A stage presentation of John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath". The Steppenwolf Theater Company's production featuring the original Broadway cast.
01 January 1982
"La Bohème" is one of Giacomo Puccini's most popular and timeless works and the second-most performed opera at New York's Metropolitan Opera.
23 March 1984
Leonora plans to elope with Don Alvaro, but he accidentally shoots and kills her father, who curses them as he dies.
05 May 1962
In 1960 CBS commissioned renowned composer Igor Stravinsky to compose a new ballet composition, Noah and the Flood, that would be adapted for a TV special.
26 June 1981
The classic Disney animated feature is performed as a live stage show at the Radio City Music Hall.
01 January 1986
This enchanting, evening-length ode to Shakespeare’s comedy features Maria Calegari (Titania), Ib Andersen (Oberon), and Jean-Pierre Frohlich (Puck).
08 November 1985
An African-American musical version of Sophocles's tragedy, Oedipus at Colonus. In 1985 PBS televised the original Brooklyn Academy of Music production, as presented by the American Music Theater Festival at the Annenberg Center in Philadelphia, as part of the Great Performances series.
01 December 1982
The Metropolitan Opera's performance of "Hansel and Gretel" features music by Engelbert Humperdinck and is conducted by Thomas Fulton.
21 November 1984
A man from a family of rich snobs becomes engaged to a woman from a good-natured but decidedly eccentric family.
14 November 1981
A trio of operas in three short stories - the first a gruesome murder melodrama, the second is a passionate tearjerker, and the third is a dark comedy of death and an inheritance.
