Consuming Prelude to Symphony : Music: Chocolate pianos set the tune for a dinner marking the opening of the San Diego Symphony’s 63rd season.

Some supporters of the San Diego Symphony have been known to harp, trumpet and declare with a good deal of brass--and at a greater length than seems truly necessary--that to them, music is a consuming passion.

This fact made it all the more astounding to contemplate the number of pianos that were smashed, gnashed and, indeed, consumed at the dinner given Friday at the University Club as a comestible overture to the opening night of the symphony orchestra association’s 63rd season.

True, the pianos that symphony stalwarts dismantled with spoons, forks and, on occasion, fingers, were made of chocolate and bore cargoes of berries smoothed with just the merest dab of creme chantilly . They arrived as a sort of grace note at the end of a meal conducted at a speed un poco allegretto e grazioso by dinner chair Elene Solomon, who with symphony President Warren Kessler welcomed the 170 guests to the private and elegant 34th Floor precincts of Symphony Towers.

In addition to the guests, a definite sense of occasion attended the fund-raiser. Much of this had to do with the approaching bow of new music director Yoav Talmi, who of course did not join in the dinner of pumpkin soup and duck in gingered orange sauce, but did send his wife, Er’ella, daughter Dana and son Gil to join the black-tie festivities. Many women honored the moment with gowns appropriate for a ball, an unsurprising situation given Kessler’s comment that the evening not only marked the inaugural concert for Maestro Talmi, but “the opening night of an arts organization that is the soul and spirit of the city.”

Rather than arrange any special decor, Solomon looked to the University Club’s setting, for the nonce the highest perch in San Diego’s downtown, to lend drama to the dinner. The meal commenced near sunset, so that the late rays angling through the prow-like windows intensified the orange tint of the pumpkin soup. Later, the revolving beams flashing from arc lights near the building’s entrance silently kept time to the bass and piano duo that, wishing to offer no competition to Talmi, played not Verdi or Rachmaninoff but simple, sprightly dinner music, something in the line of a fanfare for roast duck.

During the champagne reception that preceded the meal, Solomon declared the evening to be rather more than the usual opening night. “With our new music director, we finally have a leader, and we have wonderful concerts to look forward to,” she said. “We’re really celebrating the rebirth of our symphony.”

Longtime symphony supporter Elsie Weston, who with her husband, Frank, sponsored Friday’s performance, also credited the new music director with inspiring great expectations. “I’m looking forward to great things from Talmi,” she said. “I adore him personally and admire him immensely. I’m a purist where the symphony is concerned, and to me he is the consummate musician.”

Judson and Rachel Grosvenor, whose gift given during the year the symphony canceled its season is credited by many for saving the organization from dissolution, headed a guest list that included Kay and David Porter, Katherine and Donald Biewenga, Esther Burnham, Dorene and John Whitney, Linda and Shearn Platt, Dorothea and David Garfield, Anne and Abe Ratner, Gloria and Ed Self, Karen Kessler, Iris and Matt Strauss, Herb Solomon, Claire Tavares, Lee and Frank Goldberg, Linda Smith, Sophie and Arthur Brody, Dottie and Pat Haggerty, Valerie and Charles Ewell, Pat and Hugh Carter, Nikki and Ben Clay and Emmy and Bud Cote.

LA JOLLA--Partly to prove that grand opera need not be solemn, the La Jolla Guild of the San Diego Opera threw a pie smack in the face of convention Saturday at its first-ever “Outrageous Opera Outing.”

Subtitled “Opera Goes New Orleans” and given in the central court of La Jolla Village Square, the event attracted approximately 150 guests and revolved partly around a pecan pie competition that gave the judges--opera director Ian Campbell, restaurateur George Munger and San Diego Union columnist Michael Grant--a remarkably broad overview of the various permutations into which pecans, molasses and eggs can be baked.

Asked if he liked pecan pies, Munger considered the question a moment before replying, “Good ones.” After examining the table laid with plain, lemon and chocolate-flavored creations, he said, “I agreed to do this because I like pecans.” (If the shopping center’s floor seemed a touch sticky to patrons the following morning, that can be explained by the fact that once the pies had been judged, the guests dug in.)

Guild chairman Ernie Peak originally said that the expected proceeds of $5,000 might seem like pie in the sky, but later reported that the goal had been met. A more important goal, she said, was to establish “Outrageous Outings” as a feature of the annual fund-raising calendar; future events will take their themes from locations around the globe.

The outing did grow outrageous at times. Chairman Alice Abrams Larsen arranged for such giddy entertainments as a mock funeral procession staged by 12 drama students from La Jolla High School, who marched in--carrying a coffin, no less--to the solemn beat of a tambourine but set down their burden and danced when the Chicago Six Dixieland group suddenly launched into “When the Saints Go Marching In.” The evening also featured the Yankee Air Pirates and Biorhythm, the incomparable Big Band-style dance orchestra composed entirely of physicians. Nor did the event ignore opera: Martin Wright and Teri Sinclair sang selections from “Porgy and Bess.”

The committee included Janie Pendleton, Donna Askins, Kay Stone, Bette Counts, Patricia Scantlen, Carol Schrader, Dudie Ogden, Lilo Miller, Barbara Hench, Merle Lotherington, Rhoda Duran, Janie Newel and Sally Beacom.