EXPLORE PANDORA'S JAR AND THE INSPIRATION BEHIND MERE MORTALS
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2024 • 6:00 PM
FREE
Join us in the Opera House for a free, pre-performance talk and book signing with The New York Times-bestselling author Natalie Haynes, whose book Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths was one of Artistic Director Tamara Rojo’s influences for the new work Mere Mortals. The pre-performance talk will begin with remarks from Artistic Director Tamara Rojo.
Pre-Performance Talk: 6:00–6:45 pm (open seating in the orchestra level)
Book Signing: 6:45–7:15 pm (signing line on the south side main lobby)*
Location: War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco
Join author Natalie Haynes for her first North American Divine Might book tour stop with San Francisco audiences. She will be discussing her new book Divine Might and Pandora’s Jar, an exploration of the women at the heart of the Greek myths which influenced the ballet Mere Mortals. Natalie Haynes will be signing copies of her books after the pre-performance talk.
The pre-performance talk and book signing event is free and open to the public. Attendees wishing to stay to watch the ballet Mere Mortals after the talk and book signing must have a valid performance ticket for the January 31 performance at 7:30 pm.
Purchase Mere Mortals performance tickets here.
*Books will be available for purchase before the talk from 5:30–6pm and during the book signing from 6:45–7:15pm inside the War Memorial Opera House through Books Inc.
ABOUT NATALIE HAYNES
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster and – according to the Washington Post – a rock star mythologist. Her first novel, The Amber Fury, was published to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, as was The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, her previous book. Her second novel, The Children of Jocasta, was published in 2017. Her retelling of the Trojan War, A Thousand Ships, was published in 2019. It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020. It has been translated into multiple languages. Her non-fiction book, Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myth was published in Oct 2020, and reached #2 in The New York Times Best Seller chart. Her novel about Medusa, Stone Blind, was published in Sep 2022 and Margaret Atwood liked it. So did Neil Gaiman. She has spoken on the modern relevance of the classical world on three continents, from Cambridge to Chicago to Auckland. She writes for The Guardian. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4: eight series of her show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, have been broadcast on Radio 4: all series are available now on BBC Sounds. She will make series 10 in 2024.
Click here to learn more about Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths
Click here to learn more about Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth
The Greek myths are among the world's most important cultural building blocks and they have been retold many times, but rarely do they focus on the remarkable women at the heart of these ancient stories.
Stories of gods and monsters are the mainstay of epic poetry and Greek tragedy, from Homer to Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, from the Trojan War to Jason and the Argonauts. And still, today, a wealth of novels, plays and films draw their inspiration from stories first told almost three thousand years ago. But modern tellers of Greek myth have usually been men, and have routinely shown little interest in telling women’s stories. And when they do, those women are often painted as monstrous, vengeful, or just plain evil. But Pandora – the first woman, who according to legend unloosed chaos upon the world – was not a villain, and even Medea and Phaedra have more nuanced stories than generations of retellings might indicate.
Now, in Pandora’s Jar, author Natalie Haynes – broadcaster, writer, and passionate classicist – redresses this imbalance. Taking Pandora and her jar (the box came later) as the starting point, she puts the women of the Greek myths on equal footing with the menfolk. After millennia of stories telling of gods and men, be they Zeus or Agamemnon, Paris or Odysseus, Oedipus or Jason, the voices that sing from these pages are those of Hera, Athena and Artemis, and of Clytemnestra, Jocasta, Eurydice and Penelope.