Kirk Browning, who died Sunday at 86, was the founding director of “Live From Lincoln Center” and for three decades helped set the standard for live telecasts of the performing arts.

Browning was a veteran of early television whose first assignments included creating dramatic images of Arturo Toscanini leading the NBC Symphony Orchestra in the early 1950s.

“Kirk represents the entire history of cultural programming in American television,” the founding producer of “Live From Lincoln Center,” John Goberman, said.

“No history of public television would be complete with a lengthy list of his memorable contributions,” PBS’s President and CEO, Paula Kerger, said.

Browning was known for his innovative use of moving cameras that zoomed in on individual performers to give audiences a sense of being in the middle of the performance. In its review of a “Live From Lincoln Center” broadcast in its first season, 1976, Newsweek said, “The results, for the home viewer, were in some ways even better than being there in person.” The series continues to be among the crown jewels of public television.

Browning was born in New York City, but his family moved during the Depression to Connecticut, where his father enjoyed a reputation as something of a gentleman farmer. Browning studied piano at Juilliard, then returned home to help raise sheep and horses. An NBC executive discovered him delivering eggs from the family farm and got him a job as a music librarian at NBC.

In an era when jobs in television were only beginning to be defined, the music-savvy youngster was soon granted more responsibility. In 1951, he directed the premiere of Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors,” thought to be the first opera ever composed for television.

He later directed episodes of “The Frank Sinatra Show” and “Hallmark Hall of Fame” specials, among dozens of others. The early operas he directed for NBC were shot with just three static cameras. But by the 1970s, he might have a dozen at his command. As technology advanced they became smaller and less obtrusive, and audiences were often unaware he was recording a performance.

“A lot of people think I do too much detail. I’m a little busier than some people in this business,” he told the Boston Globe in 2000. But he relished the impression of being there, saying that his technique was meant to represent an “idealized viewer.”

Browning’s technique included watching preliminary videos of performances dozens of times to come up with his shots. Then performing companies would do dress rehearsals to optimize television coverage. Seeing his cameras get slightly out of sync at a jazz performance in 2006, he noted that it had “just enough mistakes to convince you that it’s really live.”

Browning never retired, and on Saturday night was working on production of the City Opera’s “Madama Butterfly” for a “Great Performances” broadcast on March 20. The next day he collapsed with a heart attack.

Kirk Browning

Born March 28, 1921, in New York; died February 10 of cardiac arrest at his home in Manhattan; survived by his wife, Barbara Gum, and his sons, David and Jeremy.