The jewels sparkled and the sounds of violins and horns charmed at Carnegie Hall’s opening night on Wednesday, but when it comes right down to it, the men most responsible for the jubilant mood were the chairman of the music venue, Sanford Weill, and its executive and artistic director, Clive Gillinson, who could have talked all night long about their enthusiasm for the hall’s 117th season.

“This night is a statement that something really important is happening here,” Mr. Gillinson said.

As much as Mr. Weill liked greeting Carnegie Hall’s supporters, he was looking forward to the performance by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. “I love to sit back and watch and listen. I completely forget about work and just focus on the music,” Mr. Weill said.

But there was much to look at outside the concert hall. “This is one of the most beautiful evenings in New York,” the chairman and chief executive of Citigroup’s Global Wealth Management division, Sallie Krawcheck, said.

Proving her point, at that very moment Katherine Farley swept into the room in a beautiful taupe gown and Stefania Sabbadini walked by with a rose-shaped ruby brooch, made by her family’s Italian jewelry company, gleaming at her neck.

On the other side of the Rohatyn Room, a waiter offered beef Wellington to its namesakes, Elizabeth and Felix Rohatyn, as well as Michael Barrett and Mikhail Baryshnikov.

For some, it was a family affair. Kati Marton and her daughter Elizabeth Jennings turned heads just as they had at the International Women’s Health Coalition gala last winter.

A board member of Carnegie Hall since1988,Susan Rose, brought her gorgeous and multi-talented daughter Isabel Rose, an actress, singer, and writer (she wrote a very funny and tender novel, “The J.A.P. Chronicles”), who appreciated a break from revising her second novel.

Broadway composer Mary Rodgers Guettel, daughter of legendary Broadway composer Richard Rodgers, did not bring her son, Broadway composer Adam Guettel; but she did recall a time when Carnegie Hall was filled with even more families: in 1958, when she worked on Leonard Bernstein’s first Young People’s Concerts.

“The control booth was in the men’s room,” Mrs. Guettel said, remembering the low level of technology behind the concerts, which were popular broadcasts on television. “There were no TelePrompTers. We had two scripts for Leonard, one at the podium and one at the piano.”

The chairman, president, and chief executive of Macy’s Inc., Terry Lundgren, and his wife, Tina, skipped the pre-concert reception, arriving through the backstage door moments before the performance by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, whose all-Beethoven program was conducted by David Robertson, substituting for an ailing Claudio Abbado.

That is not to say the pair doesn’t love supporting Carnegie Hall. The gala journal was sponsored by Macy’s Inc., and Mr. Lundgren, a Carnegie Hall board member, will be back to receive the hall’s medalof excellence on April 7, 2008.

agordon@nysun.com