Esa-Pekka Salonen Conducts Patrice Chéreau’s Acclaimed Staging of Elektra on PBS’s Great Performances at the Met

With Nina Stemme in the Title Role

To Be Aired Sunday, September 18 at 12 p.m. on PBS

Elektra, Richard Strauss’s blazing tragedy about an ancient Greek princess hell-bent on revenge, comes to THIRTEEN’S Great Performances at the Met. The opera, the final opera production by the legendary director Patrice Chéreau who died in 2013, airs Sunday, September 18 at 12 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). (In New York, THIRTEEN will air the opera at 12:30 p.m.)

Great Performances at the Met, courtesy: WNET New York Public Media. (PRNewsFoto/WNET New York Public Media)

Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts an extraordinary cast headed by Nina Stemme as the obsessed and bloodthirsty title character. Waltraud Meier sings her first Met performances of Klytämnestra, Elektra’s mother and the object of her fury, with Adrianne Pieczonka as Elektra’s sister, Chrysothemis; Eric Owens as her exiled brother, Orest; and German tenor Burkhard Ulrich, in his Met debut, as the corrupt monarch Aegisth.

Elektra was originally seen live in movie theaters on April 30 as part of the groundbreaking The Met: Live in HD series, which transmits live performances to more than 2,000 movie theaters and performing arts centers in over 70 countries around the world. The Live in HD series has reached a record-breaking 20 million viewers since its inception in 2006.

Elektra premiered in Dresden in 1909. Shortly after conquering the opera world with his scandalous masterpiece Salome, Strauss turned to a recent adaptation of Sophocles’s “Electra” by Austrian author Hugo von Hofmannsthal for his next project. The drama unfolds in a single act of rare vocal and orchestral power.

The resulting opera (World premiere: Court Opera, Dresden, 1909; Met premiere: December 3, 1932 with Artur Bodanzky conducting and Gertrude Kappel in the title role) is an intense and still-startling work that unites the commanding impact of Greek tragedy with the unsettling insights of early-20th-century Freudian psychology.

In the courtyard of the Palace of Mycenae, the servants are wondering whether Elektra will be grieving over her father, as is her daily ritual. Daughter of King Agamemnon and Klytämnestra, Elektra appears and locks herself up in her solitude straight away. The servants all criticize and mock her, except for one, who takes her defense.

By herself, Elektra remembers how Agamemnon was assassinated upon his return from Troy, slain with an axe by Klytämnestra and her lover, Aegisth. Devastated with grief, Elektra is obsessed with the revenge she intends to take together with her sister, Chrysothemis, and her brother, Orest. The latter grew up far away from the palace and Elektra is keenly waiting for him day after day.

Chrysothemis interrupts Elektra, who is caught up in her thoughts, and warns her that Klytämnestra and Aegisth have decided to lock her up in a tower. Chrysothemis asks her sister to renounce vengeance and let life take over again. Elektra rejects the idea with disdain.

Bon Appétit Reveals The Hot 10: America’s Best New Restaurants 2016

Bon Appetit, September 2016 (PRNewsFoto/Bon Appetit)

With the release of its September issue, Bon Appétit has unveiled its annual Hot 10 list, crowning the ten best new restaurants in America. Taking the top spot is Atlanta’s Staplehouse, a fully non-profit restaurant built by a devoted family with the support of a community that helped them overcome countless obstacles. Joining past winners like Washington D.C.’s Rose’s Luxury and San Francisco’s AL’s Place, Staplehouse raises the bar with a delicious take on New American cuisine and the inclusion of The Giving Kitchen, a charity created to support restaurant workers in need.

The Hot 10: America’s Best New Restaurants 2016 are:

1. Staplehouse (Atlanta, GA)

2. Bad Saint (Washington, D.C.)

3. Lord Stanley (San Francisco, CA)

4. Morcilla (Pittsburgh, PA)

5. Baroo (Los Angeles, CA)

6. South Philly Barbacoa (Philadelphia, PA)

7. Oberlin (Providence, RI)

8. Wildair (New York, NY)

9. Buxton Hall (Asheville, NC)

10. N7 (New Orleans, LA)

“It’s a grind, but a fun one,” says deputy editor Andrew Knowlton, who traveled with senior editor Julia Kramer over 5,700 miles to more than 40 cities in search of the restaurants that are defining the way we eat in 2016. “We had more real contenders this year than ever before,” says Knowlton.

No other publication dedicates the time, research, and calorie count that Bon Appétit puts into its best new restaurants list. Spanning September’s entire 46-page feature well, this ode to the American restaurant showcases the energy and distinctive characteristics of each winner with vibrant design, original photography, rigorously tested recipes, and ambitious storytelling.

“The September issue is the one we look forward to the most,” says Bon Appétit editor in chief Adam Rapoport. “This year, we are adding a huge, immersive online element, which will noticeably elevate the experience for our audience.”

For more on the Hot 10: America’s Best New Restaurants 2016, check out the full feature on www.bonappetit.com/hot10, where stories will run through September with essays, recipes, and exclusive video features.

Annenberg Space For Photography Presents IDENTITY: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders The List Portraits, September 24, 2016 – February 26, 2017

First Exhibition of World-Renowned Photographer’s Full List Series Portraits and Debut of The Trans List, Intimate Portraits of Transgender Pioneers

On September 24, 2016, the Annenberg Space for Photography (2000 Avenue of the Stars, Los Angeles, CA 90067) brings together for the first time all 151 photographs in IDENTITY: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders The List Portraits. In addition, the series’ latest installment, The Trans List, will premiere 40 intimate and revealing photographs of members of the transgender community. The Trans List will also debut as an HBO Documentary Film on December 5th, 2016. The never previously exhibited collection of The Trans List portraits will be on display at the Annenberg Space for Photography beside Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ existing images from The Black List, The Latino List, The Women’s List and The Out List. The List series offers a refreshing and deeply engaging look into race, gender, class, sexuality and ethnicity in America. This exhibition runs through February 2017.

The List Project began over 10 years ago with Nobel laureate Toni Morrison. “I was shooting her portrait for Margaret Garner, an opera for which she had written the libretto,” said Greenfield-Sanders. “During lunch we discussed the extraordinary number of black divas who auditioned for the production. ‘Timothy,’ she said, ‘You should shoot portraits of black divas for a book. I’ll write the text.'”

From there, the idea blossomed into multiple HBO Documentary Films and what is now a collection that spans 151 interviews and photography portraits, eight documentaries, four books, thirteen solo museum exhibitions, two museum catalogs and an educational initiative reaching countless schools and universities. It is unlike any project in media today: riveting, entertaining, and educating people of all ages on multiple platforms, as it humanizes the world in which we live.

The Annenberg Space for Photography is a cultural destination dedicated to exhibiting both digital and print photography in an intimate environment. The space features state-of-the-art, high-definition digital technology as well as traditional prints by some of the world’s most renowned photographers and a selection of emerging photographic talents as well. The venue, an initiative of the Annenberg Foundation and its trustees, is the first solely photographic cultural destination in the Los Angeles area, and it creates a new paradigm in the world of photography.

“A great portrait does so much more than merely capture its subject,” said Wallis Annenberg, Chairman, President and CEO of the Annenberg Foundation. “It gives us a glimpse into the subject’s humanity, sometimes even a window into the soul. That’s what Timothy Greenfield-Sanders achieves through his extraordinary photographic eye, and I’m delighted that he has turned his lens and his wonderful talent toward the trans community with The Trans List. These stirring and engaging portraits explore the very notion of what separates us and what unites us—how gender and sexuality shape us and define us as people. It’s a highly compelling look at a long-ignored community, and it is truly great art at the same time. To engage and enlighten and astonish, as these photographs do, is the very purpose of the Annenberg Space, and I’m pleased that we’re able to debut this new work.”

Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ entire “The List” series will be on display at the Annenberg Space for Photography. (Timothy Greenfield-Sanders)

Photographer and filmmaker Timothy Greenfield-Sanders is known for his strikingly intimate portraits of world leaders and major cultural figures. From presidents to porn stars, artists to Oscar winners, Greenfield-Sanders’ work defines a certain cultural photographic canon of our time. His portraits can be found in numerous museum collections; both the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston own limited editions sets of Art World, his 1999 collection of 700 portraits of artists, dealers, collectors and critics. In 2012, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. exhibited all fifty large-scale images from The Black List series. Greenfield-Sanders has produced and directed eleven documentary films to date. He won a Grammy Award for his 1998 film Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart and a NAACP Spirit Award in 2009 for The Black List: Volume 1 (HBO). In 2015, he received the Pratt Legend Award. His recent films include the Sundance premiered doc About Face: Supermodels Then and Now (HBO), The Out List (HBO) and The Women’s List (PBS’ American Masters). Books of Greenfield-Sanders’ work have been published by Atria, Skira, Powerhouse, Bulfinch and Fotofolio.

Timothy Greenfield-Sanders received his B.A. from Columbia University in New York and his M.F.A. from the American Film Institute in Los Angeles.

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