A Triple-Header of Good-News Galas

Beginnings are wonderful--an inaugural season for the new Los Angeles Music Center Opera, a new YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles overlooking skyscrapers, a long-awaited new Orange County Performing Arts Center.

The thrills are catching surrounding the Oct. 7 opening night of the inaugural season of the new opera. It’s even more intense than the memorable white-tie openings several decades ago when the San Francisco Opera would descend on the Shrine in all its splendor. Every ticket in the house is sold out opening night. In fact, 400 gala charter subscribers, each of whom has paid $1,000 for their opera subscription series (subscriptions for the season are sold out; only single tickets are available), will be in the audience and will be among the 700 attending the gala (which sold out three months ago).

Edward W. Carter chairs the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, a man who picked up the telephone and raised several million one morning recently for the opera. He resigned from the San Francisco Opera board this week after a quarter century of service. He’s been in the forefront over the years while Los Angeles sought its own opera company, considered alliances with San Francisco, enjoyed interims with the New York City Opera, the Covent Garden Opera, the Berlin Opera, suffered no opera. His wife, Hannah Carter, chairs the gala following “Otello.” The Carters and Executive Director Peter Hemmings have persuaded First Lady Nancy Reagan to be honorary chairman (she may attend). That evening guests will move to the Grand Hall of the Pavilion where the dinner-dance will take place on both the Founders Circle and loge levels. “There will be no best level,” said Mrs. Harry Wetzel, Mrs. Carter’s first assistant. “Both will be equally important as far as seating. The Art Deco Society Band will be on the loge level.” That opening night Placido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes and Daniela Dessi will be stars; Gotz Friedrich will direct. Lawrence Foster will conduct.

They’ll all be at the party, as well as Sir Peter Hall and Lady Hall (he’s England’s National Theatre and Glyndebourne Festival director; she’s soprano Maria Ewing, star of “Salome,” the opera’s second new production, which Sir Peter directs).

For the opening affair, Hannah Carter and Georgianna Erskine have had at least three tastings to perfect the menu. Secret Venetian favors (“practical and attractive”) are being flown in. More on the committee are Nancy Call, Palmer Ducommun, Mia Frost, Dona Kendall, Nancy Livingston, Margaret Parker, Lorraine Saunders, Terry Stanfill.

The 400 gala charter subscribers will hold hands again at the Pavilion on Oct. 9 after “Salome” at a black-tie party at the Sheraton Grande hosted by general manager Karl Schaefer in honor of the Halls. In between, the Opera League, headed by Carl Henry, will host a party in the Grand Hall after the first performance of “Madama Butterfly,” including soprano Leona Mitchell, conductor Sir Alexander Gibson and director Peter Ebert. Then Nov. 4, gala subscribers will fete the opening of “Alcina” at the Wiltern Theater, honoring Handel opera star Arleen Auger, who sang at the recent royal wedding at Westminster Abbey. The gala sequence concludes Feb. 19 with the first performance of “Porgy and Bess” at the Wiltern, with Mrs. Ira Gershwin in attendance.

Already Carol and Warner Henry and Toni and Bill Bird have hosted dinner parties surrounding the opera. Anne and Craig Combs will entertain stars of “Otello” in Hancock Park on Oct. 12.

When physical fitness lovers hop aboard exercise bikes at the new Stuart M. Ketchum Downtown YMCA at 4th and Hope, they’ll be peddling while looking out over a magnificent scene of city buildings, plaza and parkways. Quite a few scampered atop the bikes and all the equipment the other evening--in black-tie--to sample the fare, so to speak.

No one was happier at this Red and Black Gala than Stuart M. Ketchum. The man who donated $3 million for the establishment had a perpetual wide smile on his face--even wider than the one on his bust, rendered by sculptor Richard Ellis and standing in the airy lobby. Ketchum’s wife Carrie was beside him in an elegant long David Hayes suit.

Already the Y has 2,000 founder members. The 100 who have donated $25,000 will have their names on the entrance wall for posterity. This newest Y branch (of 25) opens Wednesday, with the intention of serving 25,000 children, 27,000 senior citizens and 220,000 adults who work or live downtown.

Funds from the opening party will be used to expand the YMCA’s after-school child-care programs, which currently serve 4,000 at 132 locations throughout Greater Los Angeles.

For the one evening, Chairman Lorna Reed, wife of board member Charles Reed, covered the new C. L. Peck Gymnasium floor with black turf, twinkling ficus trees and tables trimmed in red, accented with shiny black china and mirrored centerpieces. As guests were arriving, she scurried about, in black sequins and red satin, checking the microphone system, overseeing the Ambrosia-catered enoki mushrooms, asparagus and crab first course (the final was chocolate mousse and raspberries) and Ray’s Affordable Flowers, which transformed the gym.

But first, guests toured the 110,000-square-foot facility, admiring items such as the Horizontal Row, the Leg Curl, the Leg Extension, the Rotary Chest, the Chest Press, the Shoulder Press and the Bicep Curl. It was a tres chic Los Angeles crowd of movers and shakers headed by James Collins, chairman of the YMCA Metropolitan board of directors, and his wife, Carol. The Warren H. Crowells (he donated the chapel) and their son, Donald, were there. So were major donor Clair L. Peck Jnr. and his wife, Margo, and Waller Taylor II, also a major donor, escorting Sheila Bullock. The trio--Crowell, Peck and Taylor--are all chairmen emeritus.

The Metropolitan Y’s only woman officer, Nancy B. Munger, vice chairman, attended with her husband Charlie, the financier. On the tour circuit were Hugh and Patty Clark (he’s vice chairman), Frank and Flo Scott, Jim and Inge Miscoll, Bill and Carolyn Carter (newcomers from Indiana), the Morgan Adamses Jr., artist Peter Adams with Countess von Walderdorff, Aileen Adams and Geoff Cowan, Bruce and Jean Juell (admiring the stainless-steel Harrison Chandler swimming pool), Robert and Lois Erburu, the Peter de Wetters.

YMCA Metropolitan president and chief executive officer John G. Ouellet and his wife Dianne were the center of attraction, as were Stephen and Ann Hinchliffe (he’s immediate past chairman who paid special tribute to donors), Mary and Dick Walker. More in the spotlight were Sally and Joe Keon, Reva and Bill Tooley, the Adrian Heryfords and the Kelly McCranns.

The old Downtown YMCA, built in 1908 at 7th and Hope, was a city landmark until it was razed in 1969. For the last 17 years Ketchum has lent his expertise to the planning of the new facility.

Monday will be one of the biggest days in history for Orange County. It’s the opening night of the long long-awaited Orange County Performing Arts Center. The county is commandeering all the red carpet available.

Says Floss Schumacher, gala chairman, “This is the most wonderful of all times for us. We have worked for this for years--since 1976.” Now, more than $70 million has been raised for the new structure in Costa Mesa. And Monday evening, the goal is $1 million. Sold out is an understatement.

We hear that the ballgowns will be incredible. The limousines are being polished. Three thousand will come for the concert with Zubin Mehta conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; the Master Chorale of Orange County and the Pacific Choral will combine.

Then guests will walk across the street on plush carpet, sipping champagne, listening to Murray Korda and his Monseigneur Strings. Awaiting will be a gigantic reflecting pond with live swans, the imaginative result of designer Chris Lindsay’s planning. Carol Campbell and Co. will cater the party. Henry Segerstrom and Renee, who donated the land for the center and gave $6 million, and a Who’s Who of Orange County will ascend for a four-tent party including fireworks.