Christmas Season Arrives Early at Galas

Life sometimes imitates art, but recent fund-raisers rather remarkably have been inspired to imitate department stores.

Almost before the last of the Halloween pumpkins was tossed into the trash bin, the holidays--the ones that come packaged in green and red and relate specifically to Dec. 25--were trotted out for public consumption and charitable benefit. Saturday, California Ballet hosted “Nutcracker Fever,” while two nights earlier, the gala preview party for the “Come to the Holiday Table” display of fancy and fanciful table settings was jointly sponsored by the St. Germaine Auxiliary to the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation and the local chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers.

“Nutcracker Fever,” given in the Champagne Ballroom at the Sheraton Harbor Island, attempted to infect the 200 attending balletomanes with the excitement shared by the committee of the California Ballet’s “New Nutcracker Campaign.” The campaign, which started last summer and will continue through December, 1992, aims to put together a thoroughly new production of “The Nutcracker,” the famed Tchaikovsky work that has been a California Ballet staple for 20 years. The redesigned 1992 production will coincide both with the 25th anniversary of the dance group and with the 100th anniversary of the first performance of “Nutcracker.”

Top level patrons arrived early Saturday evening for a private reception in the hotel’s tower suite, in which a discreetly positioned boom box, the volume set with equal discretion, quietly broadcast the music from “The Nutcracker” while black-tied guests pried oysters on the half-shell from a buffet flanked with poinsettias, pine branches and other late-December decor.

All the campaign and gala principles attended, including chair Violet Ingrum, who expected the event to raise about $20,000, or enough to underwrite one-third of the costumes for the new production. “The all-new ‘Nutcracker’ that will premiere next year, like all the performances in past years, will be an integral part of San Diego’s holiday celebrations,” she said.

The dance company expects about 40,000 patrons to attend the 15 performances to be given in 1991 at the Civic Theatre and the Poway Center for the Performing Arts. According to a troupe spokesman, the ‘Nutcracker’ is not simply a holiday tradition, but the “lifeblood” of the California Ballet and other cities’ dance companies because the piece earns a large portion of their annual incomes.

Maxine Mahon, founder and director of the company, said the new production is intended to help celebrate the group’s anniversary rather than to take center stage on its own. “ Along with our anniversary, we’d like to be able to present the community with a new ‘Nutcracker,”’ she said. “People should know that this community has a ballet company that is very dedicated, even if it doesn’t have the high profile some local performing arts groups enjoy. And we want the community to participate in helping us to raise money. We’re not crying the blues, but we need help. The community benefits from our productions, and we want to continue the tradition. We want to keep going.”

According to “New Nutcracker” co-chair Clare Wells, other benefits for the troupe will include a preview of the new production next spring, and a Silver Anniversary gala to be given next fall.

Guests found more holiday decor in the foyer and ballroom, both of which featured decorated pine trees and numerous “nutcracker” figurines; props from the ballet, including a sleigh and trees crusted with realistic-looking snow, were utilized to turn the ballroom into the “Land of the Sweets” visited in Act II of “The Nutcracker.”

After a dinner of game hen in apricot sauce, television personality and gala master of ceremonies Larry Himmel introduced more than 20 members of the company, which performed several of the better-known scenes from the ballet. Later, in an amazing shift of mood, the Step Sisters, a singing duo accompanied by a swing band, drew guests to the dance floor with a medley of pop hits from the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s.

Guests included Carrie and John O’Brien, Georgia Laris and Alan Cohen, Francis and Flora Jennings Small, Nina and John Smart, Denise Knight and Ibrahim Naeem, Karen Risch and Robert Mott, Betty and Sidney Simon, Virginia and William Chasey, Dr. David Ingrum, Dr. James Jenkins, Katherine and Jeff Szem, Dean Krause, Mary Ann Acosta and Sarah and John Forbes.

At Thursday’s St. Germaine event, “Welcome to the Holiday Table,” guests stepped out of the elevator onto the third floor of the San Diego Design Center to hear two-thirds of the In Case Trio (or Mike Reidy and Noel Hall; Bill Hall was on sick call) singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”

The pair, seated at a grand piano set for a New Year’s Day Champagne breakfast by designer Wayne Charles Kirts, defined the mood for a display of 37 lavishly decorated table tops that encompassed not just year-end holidays, but most of those on the calendar, including St. Patrick’s Day, Easter and the Fourth of July; there were even two displays dedicated to the celebration of golden anniversaries.

About 200 guests came to munch turkey sandwiches with cranberry sauce and preview the tables (decorated by a group of designers that includes Carol Spong, Lynn Crosby Harland, Marsha Paine, Adelma Liefgreen, Andrew Gerhard and Dan Stoddard), which will be on display at the Design Center through Friday. The exhibit is open to public at a charge of $7.50 per person, which will jointly benefit the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation and the ASID scholarship program.

Nancy Hester and designer Cuilly Burdett co-chaired the preview, which Hester said was given not too far in advance of the holiday calendar. “It’s very heartwarming to work on something for children at this time of year, with the holidays approaching,” she said, adding, “But it’s always nice to work for children.”

Anne Davies and Margaret Sell are overall chairs of a committee that includes Dede Buzzard, Kathryn Murphy, Mary Tatum, Marilee Warfield, Vicki Graham, Diane Hollingsworth, Julie Papanikolas, Deirdre Dooling, Dian Peet and Patricia Snowden.

CORONADO--Invitations to the ball that for several decades owned the holiday season, the long-running Candlelight Ball to be given by the La Jolla Auxiliary to Scripps Memorial Hospital, include directions for arrival by yacht at the Loews Coronado Bay Resort, site of the Dec. 7 “StarBurst Regatta.”

Event chair Marie Olesen reigned over a recent patrons’ party given on the terrace of the new hotel, at which one utterly silent guest--a 1992 Cadillac Seville that will be auctioned at the ball as part of a $60,000 raffle--received a great deal of attention. So did the party expectations; Olesen said she anticipates an attendance of 800, up enormously from the 500 typical at recent Candlelight Balls.

“We’re reaching out further into the community this year,” said Olesen, who was born at Scripps Memorial when the hospital was on La Jolla’s Prospect Street. “This is the year of the reunification of Scripps Memorial and Scripps Clinic, and it’s the year to celebrate.”

Diversions at the party, to which tickets are available at $250, $500 and $1,000 per person, will include a copy of the Coronado Bridge over the bandstand and a musical production staged by an Emmy award-winning musical designer. Proceeds will benefit three branches of Scripps Memorial, the Cardiac Treatment Center, the Whittier Institute for Diabetes and Endocrinology, and the Community Resource Library.

Virginia Monday, Joseph Jessop Sr. and Gayle Wilson are chairs of the sizable honorary committee, and Midgie VandenBerg and Alexis Wesbey co-chair the working committee.