5 Artists Are Honored at D.C. Gala

The capital paid homage this weekend to five artistic legends from around the world, Latvia to California, whose contributions have earned them the highest such honor the nation bestows.

Opera star Placido Domingo, who is also artistic director of the Los Angeles Opera, and actor-director Clint Eastwood, who grew up in Depression-era California and studied at Los Angeles City College, were among the recipients of this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. Also feted were actress Angela Lansbury, dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry.

Some of the biggest names from film, television, music, theater and government gathered to celebrate the five artists. The events included a White House reception Sunday hosted by President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who later in the evening attended the 23rd annual awards ceremony at the Kennedy Center.

“Each in their own way, tonight’s honorees have brought to a venerable art form a spark of the new and unexpected, and each has left it more modern, more brilliant and forever changed for the better,” President Clinton said. Speaking of his role in conferring the honors, which he has done since 1993, the president added: “In the future, you may find people who do this better, but you will never find anyone who loves it as much.”

On Saturday, the honorees joined more than 200 guests for a black-tie dinner in the State Department’s elegant diplomatic reception room.

Arriving with his wife, Dina, Eastwood quipped: “It’s nice to still be around [to be honored]. I think I’ve just outlived everyone else.”

After guests feasted on cranberry-glazed quail, sugar-snap peas and roasted tomatoes, wild mushroom risotto, sweet potato souffle cake and bourbon ice cream, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright opened the evening’s tributes.

Confessing that she had always wanted to be an opera singer and perform a duet with Domingo, Albright said that she has something in common with Eastwood.

“We have both had to tangle with bad guys. . . . We have both had on occasion to use force to back diplomacy and . . . he as a director and I as secretary of State have had to fight to protect our budgets.”

She continued: “To say Baryshnikov is to conjure up all that dance can be. To say Domingo is to summon opera’s undisputed king. Chuck Berry pioneered the world’s most popular form of music and Clint Eastwood is a master filmmaker on both sides of the camera. Angela Lansbury has brought to life a host of immortal characters. . . . With every performance, they have served as eloquent envoys to a very simple idea: that the world doesn’t have to be divided as long as we have music, dance and storytelling to unite us.”

Actor Sam Waterston then read the citations that accompanied the awards.

He began with Baryshnikov, 52, a native of Latvia whom Waterston said “was born to dance.” A star at age 19 with the Kirov Ballet, Baryshnikov defected from the then-Soviet Union in 1974 and that same year made his debut with the American Ballet Theatre, where he later became principal dancer and artistic director. “Baryshnikov is the bridge from the East to the West, the old to the new, from classical to modern dance,” Waterston said.

Berry, 74, was cited for his role in helping to create the hard-charging rock ‘n’ roll sound that has dominated popular music for five decades. “He gave us thrill-hungry teens a language of our own and the music to fire a revolution,” Waterston said. Berry, whose hits include “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Maybellene,” was among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Domingo, 59, was honored as the “most prolific, beloved and influential figure in opera today.” Said Waterston: “He has logged more frequent-flier miles than most international executives flying around the world, to perform and . . . in his role as director of both the Los Angeles Opera and Washington’s National Opera.” Domingo, who was born in Madrid but spent much of his childhood in Mexico, has 115 roles in his repertory and works extensively as a conductor.

Eastwood, 70, was honored for a far-ranging career that has included starring roles in dozens of films, including “Unforgiven,” which won him the 1992 Academy Award for best director. A jazz aficionado, he was toasted by jazz musician Herbie Hancock as “not just an actor or a director. He’s a fine human being who cares.”

Gordon Davidson, artistic director of Los Angeles’ Center Theater Group, toasted Lansbury as a creative artist with a “grand sense of humor and a longshoreman’s wit.” The London-born Lansbury, 75, has won four Tony Awards and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for best supporting actress.

The gala serves as a fund-raising benefit for the Kennedy Center’s education and public service efforts. The show will be broadcast on CBS on Dec. 27.