RSVP : ‘Otello’ Didn’t Even Play Football

The black-tie crowd made an agile transition from jealousy, betrayal and murder to harmony, conversation and dining when it exited the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Saturday and entered the Grand Hall after “Otello.”

Nothing quite as theatrical as what befell the tragic Moor in the fourth act of Verdi’s opera ensued (he stabs himself in the chest after strangling his wife), but within the parameters of a gala dinner at the Music Center, the evening was dramatic enough.

The high-ceilinged hall was set with 57 tables covered in medieval-inspired tablecloths made to match the opera’s banners; each table was set with a seven-flamed candelabra entwined in blood-red roses, and the room was loosely tented with 300 yards of fireproof, burgundy silk.

“I wanted it to be baronial and reflect the feeling of the castle in the opera,” said Mary Hayley, who co-chaired the gala and designed the party with Corporate Entertainment Services.

One sub-theme of the evening was how much--no matter how hard they tried not to compare--the opera’s story of interracial love gone bad reminded everyone of the O.J. Simpson trial. “Similar to the events in Brentwood,” noted Dominick Dunne, who covers the courthouse scene for Vanity Fair.

“Don’t you think the O.J. jurors should see this?” said Barbara Davis. Though the odds are slim that Judge Ito would expose his last, precious 17 jurors to an opera about a black hero killing his thought-to-be unfaithful wife, everyone at the sold-out evening thought they’d be missing a great performance.

Opera board chairman Bernard Greenberg called Placido Domingo “one of the greatest Otellos who ever lived.” Sony Picture’s Sid Ganis said it was “better than most of the movies I’ve seen lately.”

As for the evil Iago, who relentlessly maneuvers, betrays and back stabs, film producer Leonard Goldberg said, “He could work at any studio in town--and does.”

Among those dining at the gala that raised more than $190,000 were the opera’s president Richard Seaver, general director Peter Hemmings, June Anderson, who played Desdemona, gala co-chairman Selim Zilkha, plus 550 guests including Tara Colburn, Michael and Pat York, Leonard Straus, Lynda Rae Resnick, Peter and Annette O’Malley, Ed Kakita, Kelly Day, Anne and Frank Johnson, Richard Colburn, Flora Thornton, Joan and John Hotchkis and Wendy Goldberg.

Domingo arrived late for the dinner after showering to remove the dark stage makeup and having his blood-pressure checked by a doctor. He had felt fatigued at the end of the second act. “You feel worn out,” said the tenor, who was swarmed over by auto-focus camera-toting fans. “Then you feel strong again. I don’t know why.”

As for the talk of a connection between Otello and O.J., he rolled his eyes over the superficiality of it.