Out & About
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The Metropolitan Opera’s opening night gala was a night of gravitas. There were serious people (some of whom wore white gloves), serious performances (Denyce Graves as Delilah, Bryn Terfel as Figaro), and serious speeches.
“Organizations cannot just proclaim their excellence. They must reveal it,” the chairman of the Metropolitan Opera, Christine Hunter, said at dinner on the Grand Tier. “We did that tonight.”
Specific praise followed for the maestro, James Levine.
“The enthusiasm he brings to each performance – always, it’s as if he’s conducting the work for the first time,” the opera’s general manager, Joseph Volpe, said.
Mr. Volpe quickly got down to business.
“We do have a gala at the end of the season. I ask you to start thinking about being generous, so when I call you, you are not offended,” Mr. Volpe said.
The meal, served by Glorious Food, was serious too: gravlax accompanied by an artichoke heart filled with Oregon caviar; quail and pheasant ragout, and grilled peaches and peach sorbet.
More than 500 guests attended, including Mayor Giuliani; the opera legend Rise Stevens, who turned 92 this year, and the new sponsor of the opera’s radio broadcasts, Robert Toll, the chairman and chief executive of Toll Brothers.
The event’s chairmen were Mercedes and Sid Bass, Christine and Bruce Crawford, Anne and William Ziff, and Cecile and Ezra Zilkha.
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Where are all the beautiful people? One thing’s sure: They do congregate together. Witness the summer party held last Wednesday by the Director’s Council of the Museum of the City of New York. The theme was the Three Graces, and beauty was well represented. As for the other two, intelligence and purity, there were flickers.
But back to the beauty. It came in many varieties. I saw tall and short, blonde and brunette, lithe and lither. Women wore dresses short, long, sweet, and vampish, many of them embracing the trends of the moment: lace, rosettes, velvet. The event’s sponsor, Nina Ricci; Angel Sanchez, and Anna Sui were some of the preferred designers.
“Going out, it’s all about fashion,” one of the event’s chairwomen, Anne Grauso, told me as she stood in the museum’s entry hall, prime see-and-be-seen territory.
The men, meanwhile, took delight in the “no-tie” dress code on the invitation. It was their dream night: They got to dress down while the women went all out. No one seemed to mind that the men and women were terribly mismatched, sartorially speaking.
What do beautiful people do? At the museum, they danced outdoors and ate stylish hors d’oeuvres, like spicy chicken fortune cookies. Some of them looked at the exhibits, with titles such as “Homewreckers” and “Industry and Idleness.”
