Opera Assn. Chief to Meet the Movers ief

Major supporters of the Music Center’s Unified Fund will get a chance to meet and chat with Peter Hemmings, the recently appointed executive director of the Music Center Opera Assn., over drinks and hors d’oeuvres Tuesday in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion’s The Founders. Hosting the cozy get-together (Michael Newton, president of the Performing Arts Council, sent out invitations to 200 individuals and corporations that contributed $5,000 or more to the 1984 Unified Fund Campaign) are members of the Music Center’s Board of Governors of the Performing Arts Council and directors of the Music Center Opera Assn. That night you can expect to see Harry Wetzel, board chairman, Roy Anderson, board vice chairman and head of the 1985 Unified Fund Campaign, and Thomas Wachtell, president and CEO of the Music Center Opera Assn.

The reception will give Hemmings a chance to meet some of the city’s movers. A former managing director of the London Symphony and former general manager of the Australian Opera, he is in the midst of moving from London to Los Angeles with his family.

The Year of the Ox (since the ox is hard working and steady, the year 4683 according to the Chinese calendar, promises solid progress) is what the Marymount High School Alumnae Assn. will be celebrating Feb. 17 at a Peking duck dinner at Madame Wu’s Garden. Actually, the Chinese New Year falls on Feb. 20, but everyone involved in this fifth annual Loretta Wu Wong Scholarship Banquet wanted to get a head start.

The evening will include a dragon parade with lots of sound and fury, the banquet and many predictions for those born on previous Years of the Ox (1925, 1937, 1949, 1961 and so on) and a recount of all their virtues--brains, pillars of society, patience, leadership. Some of the better-known celebrities born in Ox years are the late Gary Cooper, born in 1901; Lloyd Bridges and Richard Nixon, who were both born in 1913; William F. Buckley, Paul Newman and June Lockhart, all born in 1925; Sandy Dennis, Jane Fonda and Dustin Hoffman, born in 1937.

Fred and June (Haver) MacMurray and Joan and Jack Quinn are co-chairing the scholarship fund-raiser, which is ticketed at $50 per person.

The Social Scramble: The Spinsters welcomed new members at a Bel-Air Bay Club brunch complete with glorious weather and a beautiful view of the Pacific. Active members were around along with Spinsters president Jodi Craig and Nancy Townsend, who put together this get-together. And among the new Spinsters are Terri Larronde, Debbie Powell, Helene Heglund, Nancy Taylor, Martha Wheeler and Tracey Williamson. Prominent among the topics discussed were the annual “Crush Party” on Feb. 13 at Casey’s and the annual ball, “An Evening on the Orient Express,” coming up in May.

Chef Bent Thomsen and Steve Wallace have invited a raft of friends to an aquavit tasting and dinner at their Tivoli Garden restaurant in Encino on Feb. 11.

Earl Powell III, director of the County Museum of Art, and his wife, Nancy, are off on a European jaunt with their daughters for the opening of “A Day in the Country” (the Impressionist painting exhibition that opened at LACMA during the Olympic Games last year) at the Louvre. They’ll also visit Berlin, Vienna and London. On her return, Nancy Powell will be working on a fund-raiser for the Community Counseling Service. At the moment what she has in mind is a “phantom ball where you stay home and think about mental health.” It’s an idea with plenty of merit. Last year Danny and Rose Marie Thomas decided not to have a big gala for the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. They sent out invitations for the no-ball ball and netted $400,000. Expenses totaled $12,000.

Revlon’s Daniel Moriarty cabled from Paris to let us know he was in good company at the Balmain couture show. Among his closest companions were the Comtesse de Paris, the Duchesse d’Orleans, the Baroness Carole de Cabrol, the wives of various ambassadors to France and fashion arbiter Eleanor Lambert. The House of Balmain, Dan informs us, has designed a special collection in Thai silk for Queen Sirikit to wear on her March visit to the United States. After collection week, Balmain’s designer Mortensen flies to Bangkok to deliver the fashions to her majesty. Her U.S. trip will include stop-offs in California, New York and Palm Beach.

Architect Arthur Erickson celebrated Francisco Kripacz’s award from Interiors magazine (he was designated Designer of the Year) with a chic little reception last week.

The Richstone Family Center for the Prevention of Child Abuse is going all out on its March 31 fund-raiser. First there’s to be a cocktail party at the Shubert Theatre. Then there’s the performance of that enchanting musical “Cats.” And that’s to be followed by a supper party at 385 North. The whole package is priced at $125 per person. Earlier, the Men for Richstone stage their third annual tasting of California wines and cuisine at the Antique Guild. The date is March 2 and tickets are priced at $20 per person.