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.
BAM, City Opera Get Ship-Shaped
For its thousand-plus attendees, last Thursday’s Britannia Ball on the Queen Mary 2 was both a safe and an elegant experience. Not only did no one go overboard, no one either took a dip in the grand liner’s Jacuzzis nor got sweaty on its tennis or basketball courts.
They did, however, sip champagne on the massive upper deck, temporarily offering a view of the New York City skyline and Governors Island; they heard Broadway and West End star Patti LuPone croon in the ship’s Royal Court Theater; ate lamb and lentil ragout in its Britannia Restaurant, and danced in the nightclub G32 and in the Queens Room, where Peter Duchin led his orchestra.
After all, the event was not a vacation at sea, but a fund-raiser for the Brooklyn Academy of Music and New York City Opera, seeded with financial support from Cunard Lines, the proprietor of the Queen Mary 2, and from a finance company, CIT Group Inc.
“We have a reputation for looking after the arts. This is an ideal opportunity to do just that,” the president of Cunard Lines, Carol Marlow, said.
“I think the extra money we put into the weather is well spent,” the chief executive of CIT Group Inc., Jeffrey Peek, said.
Mr. Peek and his wife, Liz Peek, a columnist at the New York Sun, served as chairmen of the event, which secured them a spot at the Captain’s Table, situated in front of one of the ship’s most glorious works of art, a tapestry by Norwegian artist Barbara Broekman that depicts the ship.
The event raised $750,000, which will be divided equally by BAM and the City Opera.
“This is a glorious setting in which to break the routine of our daily lives in New York,” the president of the BAM, Karen Brooks Hopkins, said.
The winner of last year’s Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, LaChanze, was enthralled to view Governors Island’s leafy shores from the ship. The actress, who created the role of Celie in “The Color Purple” and now is working on a children’s book and an album, said she had been on the island more than 10 years ago, when she paid regular visits to an elderly woman who lived there when it was operated by the Coast Guard.
Serendipitously, the president of Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, Leslie Koch, was on hand to update Ms. LaChanze on the island’s status: On Saturday, it opens to the public for the summer with a program of events that for the first time includes bike riding. Tomorrow, an exhibition showing five design ideas for the island’s parks and open spaces opens at the Center for Architecture.
Several New York-based charities have recently found hospitality on board the Queen Mary 2 during its port calls here. On June 10, the liner will be the venue for a luncheon for the American Institute for Stuttering. Singer Carly Simon is an honoree, Jack and Suzy Welch are expected guests, and Tina Brown and Sir Harold Evans are the event’s hosts.
