Taking Center Stage : Placido Domingo Does Orange County Social Scene

Such a charmer, that Placido Domingo.

During a behind-closed-doors luncheon with a bevy of beauties at the Center Club on Friday, the world-famous tenor not only hummed a few bars from “All the Girls I Loved Before,” he told lunch mates that they were the Girls of the Golden West.

For Domingo--in town for his local premiere in Puccini’s “The Girl of the Golden West”--the affair marked Act I of Domingo Does the Local Social Scene, a sellout including a lunch on Saturday staged by Cartier Inc. and “The Gold Rush Gala” that follows the star’s performance on Wednesday in Segerstrom Hall.

At Friday’s do, Domingo dined with the gala committee on Chinese chicken salad and lemon Napoleons. Among the lunch-goers was his good friend, gala chairwoman Sue Perewozki and her co-chairwoman, Martha Green--both of Newport Beach.

During the intimate get-together, Domingo assured guests that “The Girl of the Golden West” had a happy ending--that the opera wasn’t one of those hanky-wringers where everybody keels over in the final act.

On Saturday at the Center Club lunch tossed by Cartier, Domingo restated his claim that California women were the girls of the West. “Here, girls have always been famous for beauty,” whispered the boyish-looking Domingo, fresh from a Madrid engagement where he performed “Othello” at the Zarzuela Theatre.

There was no impromptu humming at the luncheon. Here, before a room filled with Gold Rush Gala underwriters, the 50-year-old opera star waxed serious about his hopes for a continuing collaboration among the Center, Opera Pacific and the Los Angeles Music Center Opera--presenters of “The Girl of the Golden West.”

“I am very happy our conversation has materialized,” Domingo said, referring to a 1989 meeting where he and then-Center Chairman Henry Segerstrom, Center President Thomas Kendrick and Peter Hemmings--director of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera--proposed a collaborative effort. “I hope this is only the beginning. You have a wonderful Center and opera company. I hope we can cooperate in many events.”

Domingo’s talk came after remarks made by Segerstrom, currently the Center chairman of endowment. “Placido Domingo has sung in our hall before,” he told guests, reminding them that the opera singer had checked out the Center’s acoustics in 1986, even before it was completed.

Then Segerstrom proposed a toast. Oops. No wine had been poured. After all, guests had just been seated for the meal that would feature grilled salmon with champagne dill sauce and berries in a praline basket--all served up on gold-rimmed Cartier china. No matter. Guests simply raised high their water goblets to the man who fills their lives with music.

“Placido Domingo has sung 220 parts,” Peter Hemmings noted during the champagne reception. “I think that is an indication of his interest and involvement with opera, his preparedness to see it develop. That’s what I find so exciting.”

After a chat with Domingo, opera buff Richard Engel--a donor of $10,000 to the Gold Rush Gala--proclaimed the star “a tremendous businessman, an excellent promoter of opera.”

“It’s wonderful to see that Domingo is a prime force behind Opera Pacific, the Center, and Los Angeles Opera coming together to stage opera,” Engel said. “Maybe we’ll see him singing ‘Othello’ in Segerstrom Hall some day.”

During lunch, the buzz centered on the table centerpieces--mossy hillocks accented with orchids and topped with a reclining gold panther. Bill Baron, a spokesman for Cartier, explained that “panther” was the Duke of Windsor’s pet name for the Duchess of Windsor and that Cartier had designed its first for her.

“It was a pin,” Baron said. “A 40-carat cabachon sapphire topped with a diamond and onyx panther.” Cartier, whose Panther jewelry collection is a hot seller, recently bought the piece back for $1.3 million. “The Duke of Windsor paid $36,000 for it,” Baron said.

Also among guests: Simon Critchell, president and chief executive officer of Cartier in New York (who said that Cartier was opening a new location at South Coast Plaza in September, and yes, a gala--complete with a showing of vintage Cartier jewels from its archives in Geneva--was in the works); David DiChiera, director of Opera Pacific (who called Domingo “a superstar in the world of opera--very rare”); Center board member Carol Wilken; gala underwriting chairwoman Catherine Thyen; Jose Perewozki; Malcolm Green; Bill and Elaine Redfield; Joyce Reaume; Nancy and Rick Muth; Zee Allred; Don and Claudette Shaw; and Jim and Nancy Baldwin.

Golden Too: About 300 guests gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel on Saturday night to attend the “Golden Baton Gala,” an elegant, black-tie soiree annually staged by the Orange County Philharmonic Society.

On the agenda: Arts leader Elaine Redfield’s presentation of the Golden Baton award to Dennis Collins--president of the James Irvine Foundation. Redfield won last year’s award.

“We recognize the wonderful job that the Orange County Philharmonic does,” Collins said, explaining why the foundation has bestowed grants upon the society. “Not only the music they present, but the education about music they give to Orange County schoolchildren.”

Backstage before the presentation, magician Harry Blackstone--entertainer for the night--gave Erich Vollmer a sneak preview of his act.

Before Vollmer, executive director of the Philharmonic society could say, “Presto!” Blackstone made a pop bottle appear out of a scrunched up newspaper--a copy of The Times, in fact.

What if Blackstone had not appeared? The Philharmonic might not have made the $50,000 that will go into its music coffers. Chairing the gala was Susan Beechner.