A Celebration of Freedom, a Reminder of Tragedy

Westminster City Councilman Tony Lam had big social plans for last week--a private dinner party at the Center Club to celebrate the world premiere of the musical work “Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio,” and a gala at the Irvine Marriott to raise funds for a proposed Orange County Vietnam Monument to Freedom.

The Wednesday dinner--attended by humorist Art Buchwald and “Oratorio” composer Elliot Goldenthal--went off without a hitch.

About 50 guests gathered in the Center Club’s Chairman’s Room--where luminaries such as Margaret Thatcher have dined--to break bread with Goldenthal, who was commissioned by the Pacific Symphony to compose a musical ode to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

The dinner was underwritten by Roger and Janice Johnson, with Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, acting as honorary co-chairmen. (The Gores were unable to attend.)

But Friday night’s gala, where Gov. Pete Wilson and former President Gerald Ford were to have been honored guests, was canceled because of “threats of violence the committee received two weeks before the event,” a source said.

Apparently, there was dissension in the Vietnam community over the timing of the gala, which was planned for the same week as the 20th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.

“We were in no way trying to celebrate the fall of Saigon,” said gala committee member Joe Byers. “That is a ridiculous accusation. We are all Americans here. It was supposed to be a celebration of the Vietnamese exodus to freedom.”

Gala planners, who sold about 350 tickets (ranging from $100 to $300) to the affair, were determined to proceed with their plans until the bombing in Oklahoma City.

“They paid little attention to the threats until the Oklahoma City disaster,” said a source. “When that happened, they realized something like that really could happen.”

The event has been postponed until fall.

Said Lam, during dinner at the Center Club: “It will be better to have the gala during a calmer time.”

Meanwhile, on Wednesday night, restaurant owner Lam and his wife, Hop--radiant in a peach-colored ao dai ensemble and emeralds--joined Pacific Symphony’s major donors to sip fine wine and dine on grilled salmon and creme caramel before they swept into Segerstrom Hall to hear Goldenthal’s oratorio.

Tony Lam was all smiles when he spoke of his liberation from Vietnam 20 years ago.

“I am so happy to be here tonight,” he said. “I remember vividly what was happening at the time.

“Our country was falling apart; we were losing ground. . . . We knew we had to find a way to escape to avoid being persecuted.”

Lam, his wife and six children were airlifted aboard a C130 to freedom.

“That is why I am so thankful,” he said. “The American military saved us.”

Hop Lam was quick to point out that, when they finally arrived in Orange County, they both got jobs immediately.

“We came on a Friday, went to an employment agency and began work on Monday,” she said.

During the cocktail reception, Buchwald, who lives in Washington, explained his part in the commissioning of Goldenthal’s “Oratorio.”

“In one of my columns, I wrote that the Vietnam Memorial in Washington needed music, was crying for it,” he said. Carl St.Clair, the Pacific Symphony’s musical director, read the column and decided to do something about it.

St.Clair and Louis Spisto, the orchestra’s executive director, contacted Goldenthal, a composer of movie soundtracks that have included “Alien” and “Interview With the Vampire.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

“Now my dream is that this work be performed in Washington,” Buchwald said. “Thousands could hear it there.” The cost? “About $200,000.”

After dinner, the humorist would stand and tell guests that “if Orange County wanted to give a gift to the nation, what a beautiful gift that concert would be.”

Buchwald also gave the crowd something to chuckle about.

“The thing that impresses me here is the fantastic civic pride you people have,” he said. “First thing that happens when you arrive is people ask you, ‘How do you like Orange County?’

“I’ve told them in the past that it’s OK, and noticed disappointment on their faces.

“So this trip, I decided to change my tune. When the hotel manager asked how I like Orange County, I told him I thought it was the greatest place in America!

“His answer, ‘You wouldn’t say that if you lived here.’ ”

On a very serious note, Roger W. Johnson, director of the General Services Administration, talked privately of his recent visit to Oklahoma City.

“That was my building down there,” said Johnson, who wore a purple, blue and yellow ribbon on his lapel. (“Purple is for the children of the Oklahoma disaster,” he explained. “Yellow is for the missing, and the blue is for the adults.”)

“We had 23 people down there from our own agency,” Johnson said. “It’s pretty hard to talk about; I’m very close to it at the moment.

“But I have to say that the coming together of the people is like something I have never seen. One of our people was literally peppered with glass and metal,” he said. “He had a crushed leg and arm, eyes sewn shut, couldn’t see or talk. So he wrote with one hand, asking about his colleagues. And when I left him, he held up his good hand and gave me a thumbs-up sign.”

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The festivities at the Center Club ended with a speech by Goldenthal. Standing before the crowd, the shy, 40-year-old composer said that “no matter how tonight goes, my life is complete.”

A few days before, he explained, a Vietnam vet had listened to a cellist play the opening movement from the oratorio.

The vet told Goldenthal that the music he had just heard was “my life.”

The piece spoke to him of the agitation of war, the self-hatred, “the feeling that Vietnam was a woman in distress and there was nothing he could do to help her,” Goldenthal said.

“And, when he told me that, I swear, my life became complete. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.”

Dinner guests also included Pacific Symphony board President Ron Hanson, and his wife, Joyce; George and Arlene Cheng; Susan St.Clair; Julie Taymor; Cameron Kay with Mark Johnson (new chairman-designate of the Orange County Performing Arts Center); Maurice and Marcy Mulville; Edward and Helen Shanbrom; Sharon Lesk with Mike Church, and U.S. Rep. Christopher Cox.