Gala to Open Fall Season

Opening nights don’t just happen. They’re planned. And kingpins of opening night of the Los Angeles Music Center Opera have shuttled back to Los Angeles from summer houses and holiday respites to assure a glamorous night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Sept. 10.

That’s the evening of the $650-per-person (minimum) benefit performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata” and the “Traviata”-inspired party that follows under the stars on the Music Center Plaza.

Traditionally, the opera opening launches the fall social season in Los Angeles; 700 people are expected at the gala.

Last week, Carol and Warner Henry came up from their Newport summer home to gather the opera committee for cocktails at their Hancock Park residence. A few days earlier, Saks Fifth Avenue staged its glorious annual “Opera Collection” of evening wear for about 250 people in the Hotel Bel-Air garden.

At the Henrys, Peter Hemmings, the opera’s general director, and Carol Henry, chair of the opera board’s special events committee, announced that the opening gala will be chaired by actress Anjelica Huston and her husband, sculptor Robert Graham.

Dan Klemuk will design the decor, and Pavilion Catering will stage the cuisine.

The steering committee has conferred long-distance from summer sojourns. (For instance, member Joan Hotchkis is with the Los Angeles Philharmonic support entourage in Salzburg.) The committee includes Dee Sherwood, Joan Thompson, Veronica Pastel, Terry Stanfill, Lauren Leichtman and Linda May.

Also contributing to the event are Sharon and Ed Bodde (Saks’ manager), Lila and Roy Ash, Hannah and Ed Carter, Mary and Byd Marshall, Robin and Gerald Parsky, Barbara and Marvin Davis, Lili Fini Zanuck, Bridget and John Martens, Donna Mariash, Anne and Franklin Johnson, Georgianna and Paul Erskine, Alice and Joe Coulombe, and Annette and Peter O’Malley.

*

GREAT LADY: Caroline Ahmanson receives the Golda Meir Fellowship Award at a Monday luncheon at the Regent Beverly Wilshire. Della Koenig chairs the event for the women’s committee, Builders of Scopus, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Marcia Wilson Hobbs is honorary chair, and couturier Adolfo will showcase his fall collection, presented by Saks Fifth Avenue.

*

JUMPING: The social set is jumping hurdles in Orange County to outdo itself for the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine Hunt Breakfast. The affair is Aug. 30 at Joan Irvine Smith’s the Oaks Equestrian Center. Attendance at last year’s inaugural event topped 1,200.

Hunt Breakfast Chairman Peggy Goldwater Clay has a super committee, including Floss Schumacher, Barbara Harris, Tricia Nichols, Shari Esayian, Janet Curci Walsh, Catherine Thyen and Dottie Stillwell. They plan sumptuous omelets for a crowd that will watch the West’s best horses jump at the Oaks Fall Classic. More involved: Renee Segerstrom, Mary Roosevelt, Barbara and Daniel Royce, Madeline and James Swinden, and Constance Morthland.

*

EMERGENCY: Marcia Israel and Anne Jeffreys have taken on an emergency fund-raiser for Childhelp USA Village, which aids battered and abused children. Says Israel: “The necessary Sacramento budget cuts are creating real needs. . . . There are now needs that must be paid with cash, and so the ladies of Childhelp have hurriedly put together a solution.”

Saturday they will host a “Special Fiesta” at the Playboy Mansion, with tours of the mansion and grounds, cocktails and gourmet foods, prizes and an auction. Tickets are $175. Rallying to help are Joanna Carson, Billie Ruth Galef, Carole Cramer, Ann Miller, Rhonda Fleming Mann, Marilyn McDaniel, Terry Hamilton, Merrie-Jean Ross, Carol Towne, and, of course, Childhelp founders Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson.

*

KUDOS: The UCLA Foundation has a new president. Robert S. Wilson, president of Duckett-Wilson Development Co., succeeds John E. Anderson, philanthropist and president of Topa Equities Ltd. The 14 new trustees are: James T. McCarthy, Rhonda Fleming Mann, William M. Bitting, Elwood S. Buffa, Marcia H. Howard, Dr. In Yung Chung, Samuel J. Tibbitts, Andrea E. Shapiro, Dr. Laurence Seigler, Dr. Sanbo S. Sakaguchi, Dr. Harrison Latta, Benjamin L. Holmes, Geraldine S. Hemmerling and Charles Gelfand.

*

MAGNIFIQUE: I. Magnin may no longer have its old Wilshire Boulevard store at 3240 Wilshire, but Sept. 25 it will stage the grand opening of the new I. Magnin Specialty Store in San Diego’s Fashion Valley to benefit the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. Barbara ZoBell chairs the black-tie “C’est Magnifique” evening with its Chanel fall collection straight from the Paris fashion runways. I. Magnin is underwriting the gala, expected to raise $100,000.

*

ON THE RUN: Most Dodgers and their wives have joined the fashion show team for the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 65 Roses Club Family Fashion Show fund-raising luncheon for cystic fibrosis, Saturday at the Sheraton Universal. Dodgers co-hosts are Orel and Jamie Hershiser, Brett and Eveline Butler, and Jim and Cathy Gott. Players, wives and their children will model designer J. Gerard’s fashions. Tickets start at $65.