‘Butterfly’ Tears and a Night at the Opera

Only the paparazzi departed the Music Center Opera’s opening night disappointed. They’d been told Warren Beatty and Annette Bening would attend Thursday’s black-tie gala performance of Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.” The photographers arrived in force, but, alas, no Warren, no Annette.

However, the absence of Hollywood glitz had absolutely no effect on the opera patrons. (One quaintly told a friend that the two-dozen paparazzi were expecting “movie people.” This is definitely not the crowd that watches “Entertainment Tonight.”)

The stars the Music Center patrons were ecstatic over, in the way only opera fanatics can be, were Placido Domingo and Maria Ewing, the leads in the company’s new production of Puccini’s tragic love story.

“You will never see a better ‘Butterfly,’ ” said opera board president Bernard Greenberg. Doug Cramer said that the week before he’d been at the San Francisco opera opening, which “seemed very provincial. This looked like a world-class opera.”

There was much celebration over the fact that opera has grown so quickly at the Music Center. “In just six years, look at how this company has worked itself up to a major position in the performing arts in Los Angeles,” said board chairman Roy Ash. “This is first-class opera for a first-class audience.”

In a medium as emotional as opera--and after a performance that brought cathartic tears to much of the audience--this sort of hyperbole is to be expected.

“There aren’t that many opportunities in life for intense emotional experiences,” said opera board treasurer Warner Henry. “There’s love, war and opera.” Added patron David Barry, “Where else can you pay $85 and cry for three hours?”

Guests recounted these emotional highs and lows after the performance at the lavish $650-per-person gala, chaired by Ginny Mancini, which netted $300,000. The Music Center’s plaza had been walled off with black canvas, then decorated in an Asian motif to accompany the “Butterfly” theme.

The 800 patrons entered through a red Oriental arch, past dogwood trees and beneath Japanese lanterns to tables set with chopsticks and cutlery. “This is very California,” observed artist Ian Falconer. “Eating smoked salmon with chopsticks.”

Among the eclectic crowd were David Hockney, Marvin and Barbara Davis, Annette O’Malley, Caroline Ahmanson, Edward and Hannah Carter, Tara Colburn, Wendy and Leonard Goldberg, Suzanne Marx, Sidney Poitier, Joan Thompson, Veronica Pastel, Fred Hayman and Anjelica Huston.

It was probably inevitable that Beatty would be a no-show. As one patron, mindful of the actor’s famed social life, asked, “When would he find time for opera?”