Week in Review : MISCELLANY / NEWSMAKERS AND MILESTONES

Six weeks before its opening, the Orange County Performing Arts Center’s 3,000-seat multipurpose theater in Costa Mesa was dedicated last Sunday and given its official name--Segerstrom Hall--after a family that one admirer called “the Medici of Costa Mesa.”

The $70.7-million theater is named after the family that runs the Costa Mesa-based C.J. Segerstrom & Sons development firm and is the Center’s chief benefactor.

The theater’s opening Sept. 29 will present the Los Angeles Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta. Other attractions in the Center’s first season will be the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theater and New York City Opera.

Last Sunday’s one-hour ceremony under the theater’s seven-story portal was marked by one paean after another to the Segerstroms, who not only donated the five-acre site but gave $6 million to the Arts Center.