A Night of Remembrance at the Bowl

As the Hollywood Bowl opened for its 76th season on Tuesday night, Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. managing director Ernest Fleischmann entertained Ron Miller and Diane Disney Miller, and Frank Gehry and his wife, Berta, in the first row of the terrace boxes.

Walt Disney’s widow, Lillian, and the Disney family have contributed nearly $100 million toward building the new Walt Disney Concert Hall for the Philharmonic. Gehry is the hall’s architect.

“I grew up at the Bowl,” said Diane Disney Miller, “and then Ron and I came here with our children and friends and picnicked--so there’s great nostalgia tonight.”

The Millers now live in San Francisco and Napa Valley, where they own Silverado Vineyards. Thus, they were drinking Silverado’s 1995 Chardonnay and its 1994 Merlot.

Gehry looked down on the Bowl stage and commented, “I did the balls,” recalling that the 11 pearlized spheres over the orchestra were installed when the old fountains were removed because conductors Zubin Mehta and Pierre Boulez wanted to “bring people closer to the stage.”

Tuesday’s picnics were both simple and elaborate. Maria Hummer and husband Bob Tuttle entertained Marina Day and Paul Livadary on Limoges china. Suzie and Dick Miller had a good-sized bouquet of home-grown roses on their Williams-Sonoma green-checkered cloth. As she has for 20 years, Suzie prepared her own picnic and offered bites to passersby.

Peter and Annette O’Malley sat in their box with his sister Terry and her husband, Rolle Seidler, feasting on a Patina restaurant box picnic and reminiscing about Bowl openings since the first year of their marriage--1971.

Anne McIntyre joined her parents, Norma and David McIntyre, sipping wine from green goblets and munching popcorn. Anne calculated she had been to almost every opening night since she was 4.

Felisa Vanoff had invited Martin Manulis to sit in her garden box. “I’ve had this box for about 10 years,” she said. “It’s like getting into prep school or Harvard--you don’t give it up.”

Before the concert, conducted by Philharmonic Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, Fleischmann paid tribute to Dorothy Buffum Chandler, who died Sunday. Mrs. Chandler was also lauded in the evening’s program for saving the Hollywood Bowl from financial crisis and leading the campaign to build the Philharmonic’s home at the Music Center.

A more private tribute came from the forward box of philanthropist Wallis Annenberg. “If she had been around, there would have been none of this futzing with Disney Hall. It would have been up three years ago,” Annenberg said.

The evening drew family clusters and longtime Bowl aficionados, among them Dorothy Chandler’s daughter, Camilla Chandler Frost, and son, Otis, former publisher of the Los Angeles Times and former chairman of the board of directors of Times Mirror Co., with his wife, Bettina.

“My mother would be glad we were here,” said Otis Chandler. Frost recalled “lots of happy memories coming to the Bowl with Mom and Dad [the late Times Publisher Norman Chandler].”

Friends of the Bowl headed by Rebecca O’Neill hosted one of the preconcert parties to honor previous Bowl volunteer chairmen, among them Patsy Edwards, Mary Alice O’Connor, Maxine Miller, Olga Quinn, Susan Holt and Sharon McNalley.

Prominent in the crowd were Bob Attiyeh, president and CEO of the Philharmonic, and his wife, Linda; Alan Wayte, Philharmonic secretary for two decades and his wife, Nancy; Philip Hawley (lifetime Music Center trustee) and his wife, Mary; O’Malley and Ann Miller; Jim and Jonnie Neville; and John and Martha Welborne.