Opera Fans Quietly Appreciative

Dame Gwyneth Jones, star of Los Angeles Music Center Opera’s “Die Frau Ohne Schatten,” was among the last to arrive at the midnight Halloween night supper in the sky-top Pavilion restaurant at the Music Center.

How had the opening gone? “I thought it was wonderful. Not only did the audience applaud; they were so quiet. You know, the production opened first in London, but it fits better here in Los Angeles--with all your talk of women’s lib and women’s rights and abortion.”

Dame Gwyneth plays the role of a woman purchased at a market by her love-starved future husband but who, politely speaking, rejects him.

At the post-opening party, several hundred moved through the buffet like vultures. An autumn array of yum-yums--roasted corn, squash, corn puddings, scallops in puff pastry and wonderful pecan squares--were webbed among corn stalks and an occasional black widow spider.

Joe and Alice Coulombe had rushed from their at-home musicale benefiting Haven House, an emergency shelter for battered women and children. Carol and Warner Henry (she coiffed in a one-side-back French ‘do) arrived earlier in the afternoon from Paris, where they’ve purchased an apartment. They were in the first row of the Founders with David Hockney and the opera’s chairman emeritus, Edward W. Carter, and his wife, Hannah. New opera President Richard C. Seaver sat in the orchestra first row with Helen Pashgian. Bernard (opera chairman) and Lenore Greenberg greeted in the Pavilion, where Hockney, who designed the opera’s whimsical staging, spoke of “the pulse of life” import on opera lighting and where Dr. Frank Thompson took Halloween seriously, a duo of wiggly skulls blinking on his crown.

Prominent: contralto Jane Henschel, a Los Angeles native who plays the nurse, and Louis Lebherz, the one-armed brother in the opera. Lebherz lost his home in the Laguna fire and the opera family was rallying ‘round. Among them: Michael and Jacqui Tenzer, general director Peter Hemmings and Richard E. Troop of Santa Fe.

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OUT WEST: First Interstate Chairman Ed Carson’s boots were black patent; Carolyn Miller’s, velvet, and Preston Hotchkis’, black leather trimmed in red. Jim McElvany’s and Shel Ausman’s Zuni thunderbird bola ties were amazing. And Joanne Hale was downright authentic in her Santa Fe ruffled broom skirt. The upshot: the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum annual gala--this being the fifth, raising nearly $360,000, most ever--has become the most stylish shindig Out West.

An enormous crowd circled around the cactus and yellow-rosed tables as actor James Woods introduced his “true friend,” honoree James Garner of “Maverick” fame, who in turn paid tribute to Gene Autry. Hotchkis accepted accolades for the Bixby/Hotchkis family’s historic ranching legacy, with wife Maurine watching. And E.A. Gregory was named distinguished benefactor.

After the silent auction (the Cowboy Colt went for $19,000), it was late, and some of the audience evaporated. Too bad, because Patty Loveless and Vince Gill sang their hearts out. When Gill dedicated “Just Look at Us” to the Autrys, Jackie moved closer to Gene, picked up his hand and kissed the palm. Nearby, artist Fritz Scholder of Scottsdale was plotting his black-tie Halloween party, to which 80 were invited to see the unwrapping of a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy (a falcon). He said it was a Victorian custom.

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CARING: Pacific Diamond Circle Club staged “Mandatory Healthcare In America--National Triumph . . . or Tragedy?” last week at the Ritz-Carlton, Huntington, drawing 500 for a panel of six. Janice Corey, Hugh L. Macneil and Edith Roberts chaired the night, inaugurating a series of issue-based forums to benefit Pacific Clinics of California and its work in mental health. Kenneth Abramowitz, a health care analyst, was the most adamant: “This is the beginning of the end of the health system--and will lead to its demise in 75 years.”

Others with varying opinions: Lynn Etheredge, former director of the Office of Management and Budget; Terry Hartshorn, president, UniHealth; Dr. David R. Holley, president, California Medical Assn. Council on Legislative Affairs; Robert F. Allnutt, executive vice president, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Assn. of America, and Walter A. Zelman (by satellite), senior adviser to the presidential task force on health-care reform.

Buzzwords all seemed to start with C--crisis, chaotic, competition, cost, consensus, compromise, choice, and, oh, yes, a Capitol one--Clinton. Hillary was booed.

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PAST PERFECT (ALMOST): John and Marion Anderson’s ovens were quirky and the main course was a bit delayed at the lovely party they hosted in Bel-Air for the Board of Regents of Childrens Hospital. It left a time gap for John Quinn’s chief message: Regents hope to raise multitudes of cash for a surgical center.

Foremost: Regents chairman David Watts and wife Janet, Anna Murdoch, former Vatican Ambassador William Wilson and wife Betty, Bud and Lynn Grier, Anne Wilson, Dody and Otis Booth, Betty Keatinge, Chantal and John Kilroy, Margie and Robert Peterson, Jean Smith, Joyce Bogart Trabulus and Dr. Vaughn Starnes.

Dr. John Reinisch showed computer graphics blending the visual effects of surgery on patients with disfiguring conditions. When his patient, 8-year-old Daniella Fortuna (who suffers from hemangiomata), said she “liked him as a doctor and as a friend” and that she, too, wanted to be a plastic surgeon, he blotted a tear.

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