The opening night of the New York Philharmonic’s 166th season marked more than a few milestones. The gala portion of the evening — cocktails before the concert at Avery Fisher Hall, and dinner under a tent afterward — drew a record 1,000 guests, among them Henry and Nancy Kissinger, Mortimer Zuckerman, Charles Prince, Rand and Jessie Araskog, and Roy Goodman. The total amount raised, $2.87 million, was also a record.

Music director Lorin Maazel, conducting an all–Dvorák program, took his second-to-last bow in a season-opening performance for the N.Y. Phil; Alan Gilbert assumes the post in 2009. The new season also marks the beginning of Credit Suisse as the orchestra’s “Global Sponsor”; the financial services company provided the funding to project the concert live on a large screen on Lincoln Center’s plaza.

A managing director of Credit Suisse, Karlheinz Muhr, made his public debut as a director of the Philharmonic’s board last night, joining 47 other members, who include executive director Zarin Mehta, chairman Paul Guenther, secretary Daisy Soros, and fellow directors Sung Han-Andersen, Gerald Hassell, Karen LeFrak, and Sandra Warshawsky.

One little-known fact included in the program notes for the performance is that a statue of Dvorák was stored on the roof of Avery Fisher Hall for 32 years, until the Philharmonic donated it to the Dvorák American Heritage Association, which moved it to Stuyvesant Square Park on East 17th Street, across the street from where the Czech composer lived when he was director of the National Conservatory of Music.

agordon@nysun.com