Preparations Reach an Operatic Pitch

Scenes of St. Petersburg and a Paris mansion will set the stage at the Music Center on Sept. 3 for the L.A. Opera’s fall season opener, “Fedora,” starring Placido Domingo and Maria Ewing. Composer Umberto Giordano’s dramatic love story about the wealthy widow Princess Fedora Romazoff is fraught with murder, plots, intrigue and exile.

It has given the gala opening night chairwomen Jennifer Diener and Diane Keith all the inspiration they need to plan what promises to be one of the most unique benefits of the year.

First-nighters will pay $750 for Founders seats and the post-opera gala; $725 for orchestra seats and the gala. They will make a grand entrance to the party through tall Russian gates opening to the Music Center Plaza, where hundreds of tables will be set with gold lame cloths, white and cobalt china and white flowers bedecked with faux Faberge eggs painted in blue and gold. Russian folk dances will add allure.

Dan Klemuk’s Greenbriar Florist is masterminding the decor. And Piero Selvaggio of Valentino is helping create the Russian fare.

On July 17 at a luncheon Barbara Lockhart hosted at Chasen’s (the former Bistro location, where she is doing the decor of the new restaurant and its upstairs yet-to-debut Jockey Club), a few of the gala committee members convened over chef Michael Otsaka’s salads and desserts. Joan Hotchkis, Annette O’Malley and Elizabeth Levitt Hirsch went over gala details.

Vodka. “Of course!” Champagne? “Of course!” And Leonard Neil’s Orchestra will play into the wee hours.

The city’s leading lights from the social, business and entertainment worlds love the fall opera opening, and they’ll be out in black tie and the latest ball gowns.

At the luncheon, Diener and Keith giggled over one novelty:The committee members will wear tiaras. “We could ask Harry Winston for tiaras,” said Keith. “Or try costume shops,” said Hotchkis. “It will look royal.”

Added Diener, “If you can’t have a few laughs doing an opera party, when can you?”

Diener isn’t all play, however. She’s just been named as a trustee to the board of Radcliffe, her alma mater.

In other preseason doings, on Aug. 25 patrons and the committee will attend a cocktail reception at Cicada hosted by L.A. Opera General Director Peter Hemmings.

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New Power: Pam Mullin hosted a powerhouse group of women at Spago to welcome Carol Biondi to Los Angeles. Biondi and her husband, Frank, who heads MCA, already are social activists (aiding foster children) on the Los Angeles scene, but Pam, being the thoughtful person she is, wanted to extend her new friend’s acquaintances.

In the crowd on July 16 were Nancy Daly, Joan Graves, Lillian Lovelace, Billie Maguire, Maria Hummer, Wallis Annenberg, Lynn Evans, Caroline Ahmanson, San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, Diane Cooke, Judy Resnick, Faith Porter, Norma McIntyre, Robin Kramer, Kathy Turner (the new and first female president of Los Angeles Rotary 5), Barbara Yaroslavsky, Barbara Wagner, Connie Rice, Sister Jennie Lechtenberg, Sukey Garcetti, Darrien Iacocca, Lee Ramer and Katherine Moret.

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Jacoulet Revisited: More than 250 turned out for the Trustees of the Pacific Asia Museum members’ preview for the exhibition “The Prints of Paul Jacoulet Revisited.” The Jacoulet works--166 woodblock prints--reprise one of the museum’s most popular exhibitions from the 1980s. The exhibit will remain open to the public through Oct. 19. The Jacoulet works were a gift from Richard and Yoshiko Child of Tokyo. Jacoulet (1897-1960) was born in France but raised in Japan.

Cents Count: “The Roll Call of the Nation” by 400 national chapters of the City of Hope National Medical Center at the Beverly Hilton revealed $65,836,074.38 turned in at the biennial convention, chaired by Izzy Freeman and co-chaired by Iris Rothstein. The convention was July 19-21. Even if some guests didn’t vote for him, the crowd, we hear, loved former President Bush, who received “The Spirit of Life” Award.

Kudos: Praises for the LAPD SWAT Unit officers. They’ve done outstanding volunteer service for crippled children at Orthopaedic Hospital. Three hundred hospital staff members honored 50 officers and their families with a barbecue July 24 on the hospital campus. The officers raised $40,580 in sponsorships for the 120-mile Baker to Vegas Desert Relay Run on April 12.

Elsewhere on the Social Circuit

The American Assn. of Kidney Patients, Los Angeles chapter, will host a benefit performance of “Who Lives?” and a champagne reception Saturday at the 24th Street Theatre in North University Park. Judy Weintraub founded the organization to provide support for people living with kidney disease.

* The JBB ALLStars, an auxiliary supporting Jewish Big Brothers / Camp Max Straus, will set out to sea aboard the charter yacht Fantasea, departing from Marina del Rey on Saturday at 8 p.m. This “First Annual Noah’s Ark Cocktail Party & Silent Auction” is a fund-raiser.