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 A thousand and one nights
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| Looking southeast towards Central Park South. 2:45 PM. Photo: JH. |
November 4, 2009. A sunny, mild autumn day was Election Day in New York. Michael R. Bloomberg, one of the ten richest men in America, was re-elected to a third term as Mayor of our fair metropolis.
Moving quickly: Tomorrow night at Lincoln Center, the New York City Opera returns to its home which has been recently refurbished at a cost that was ten or twenty times the original construction cost forty-seven years ago.
One of its prime benefactors is another New Yorker who is among the ten richest Americans, David Koch. Thanks to his donation of $100 million to Lincoln Center the great new old theater has been named for him – the David H. Koch Theater.
The NYC Opera now has a new theater and also a (fairly) new General Manager and Artistic Director, the brilliant George Steel. Mr. Steel came into his profession as a protégé of that now legendary maestro and composer Leonard Bernstein who was present at the creation of Lincoln Center.
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| Enjoying the autumn scenery in Central Park. |
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There will be a Gala Concert, “American Voices” which will showcase great music from American opera and musical theater performed by some of the company’s stars including Amy Burton, Joyce Castle, Anna Christy, Joyce DiDonato, Lauren Flanigan, Anthony Dean Griffey, Marc Kudisch, Samuel Ramey with the New York City Opera Orchestra and Chorus. There will also be special guest appearances by former NYC Opera maestro, Julius Rudel, as well as the New York City Ballet as well as Mr. Rufus Wainwright.
The Who’s Who of the town will be out for this one. Mayor Bloomberg is the Honorary Chair of the evening. The Co-chairs are Frank Bennack Jr., Katherine Farley and Jerry Speyer, Joan Granlund, Julia Koch, Lee Slaughter and Ann Ziff.
Then there is an auction. Auctions have become very popular fund-raising devices over the past several years at these gala benefits. The problem now is they have become too frequent and too mediocre as to lose the audience’s attention. The auctions that are successful are those that offer something someone wants.
Monday I had lunch at Michael’s as the guest of Luziah Ismail-Hennessy, who is the Chairman of the Auction Committee. Also joining us were Count Carl-Eduard von Bismarck, Xavier Guerrand-Hermes and Jean-Christophe Laizeau. Mr. Laizeau is the International Communication Director for Ruinart Champagne. Ruinart is part of the LVMH conglomerate. Mrs. Hennessy is married to Mr. Hennessy (or Monsieur Hennessy) of Moet-Hennessy. You still with me?
Mme. Hennessy is a very attractive Asian woman whose English is international in inflection. She has a very charming manner, like silk rippling in the breeze. She is also smart and gracious and very European in her delivery. And all the while business-like. I was totally charmed. Mr. Guerrand Hermes is a member of that family. Did you know that Hermes only has one brief sale a year and then what’s left is offered to their employees at another sale price, and then what’s left of that is burned. Yes, you read that right. If you don’t want it, then nobody can have it! A very clever move.
Count von Bismarck is the grandson of the Iron Chancellor after whom the famous battleship was named.
The group loved the food at Michael’s. M. G-Hermes had a steak, von Bismarck some red meat and Mme. Hennessy the cheeseburger, as did M. Lazeau. I had the Mushroom bisque and the little potato salad (it’s not like it sounds/ you had to be there but it’s very good). Everybody’s looked good and I noticed everything was gone from their plates at the end. |
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| The forest of Friedrichsruh, Germany, seat of the von Bmismarck Family, one of the great hunting estates of the world. |
We were there to talk about the auction. They told me how they found the auction items and how, with the exception of M. Laizeau, everyone donated something.
Count von Bismarck donated (Lot 2): Hunting in Friedrichsruh, Germany on the count’s 24,000-acre forest estate. Friedrichruh is the seat of the von Bismarck Family, and one of the great hunting estates in the world, famous for its wild boar shoots. It was the home of Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian statesman who founded the German Empire in 1871.
The count invites the highest bidder for their 40 gun October boar shoot in October 2010. What, you’ve never been on a wild boar shoot? Following the day’s shooting, there will be a black tie dinner and dancing and you will see what it’s like to be a German aristocrat having a black tie dinner on the edge of his private 24,000-acre forest. Different, that much it is.
The shoot is valid for two guns, four persons for October 2010. Does not include accommodations; recommendations will be provided. A valid hunting license for Germany is required. A rare treat. The starting Bid incidentally, is $10,000.
Count von Bismarck is a very genial fellow. He lives here in New York part of the time where his young family is in pre-school.
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| Dar Mouilay Boubker, the private residence of Xavier Guerrand-Hermes in the medina of Marrakech, with a four-night stay for six offered at auction. |
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M. Guerrand-Hermes also donated an item for the auction: (Lot 8) Private Residence, Morocco. Dar Moulay Boubker is located in the heart of the medina in Marrakech. M G-Hermes is offering a four-night stay for six persons/three couples in his fully staffed home that was once the residence of the sister of the King of Morocco. An Oriental dream of a thousand and one nights, swimming in a mosaic pool, walking through perfumed gardens; discovering Marrakech. Valid through December 2010. Guests must be at least 12 years old. Starting Bid: $25,000.
Other items in the New York City Opera’s luxury auction include being a guest of Moet-Hennessy for lunch prior to the final matches from their center court box.
There’s an African Fishing Adventure organized by Huntessential Fishfantastic, which was founded in 2006 by Louis Beukes and Sergei Jastrzembsky as an exclusive, by membership-only, shareholding club for those who wish to live an unique experience of the great outdoors in Africa. The winning bidder will design a one-week itinerary among its lodges in South Africa, on the Indian Ocean, in Namibia and Zimbabwe, all with their own dedicated concierge and chef and private bush plane. Bidding starts at $20,000.
There are visits to the great vineyards of France (along with their haute cuisine, wines et al). A champagne tasting at the Chateau Saran, the hospitality chateau of Moet-Chandon founded in 1743 by Jean Remy Moet.
An overnight a visit to the cellars, a diner gastronomique. Bordeaux Tastings, Cognac Tastings; A visit to Jordan; a visit to the Art of Greece, an Italian Grand Tour of the Amalfi Coast and a visit to the private island of Li Galli, off Positano, once the home of Leonid Massine, the leading dancer of the Ballets Russes, friend of Picasso, Fokine, Cocteau, with a house built by his friend Le Coerbusier.
Nureyev purchased it in 1988, now owned by Marchese and Marchesa Antonio and Carla Sarsale, owners of Le Sireneuse in Positano. All kinds of treats including a Grand Tour of Sicily.
Jamie Niven will conduct the auction during the dinner on Thursday night, after the performance. Then everyone will get up and dance to Vince Giordano and His Nighthawks and a new era of the New York City Opera will have begun.
Getting In. So after dinner last night I piled into a taxi and went down to Mr. Chow’s at 57th Street just a block off Sutton Place. They were celebrating their 30th anniversary, according to the press release I received several times from their publicists inviting me to attend.
The press release included a roomful of “expected” boldfaced names including some movie and television people, Park Avenue stilettos, along with the velvet downtown.
These gatherings don’t have a lot of appeal for me. The been-there-done-that syndrome having long ago taken over. If I were half my age then Eros would have been the charge that enters the crowded rooms of the hot-ta-trotties. That and the free drinks and food.
I figured that’s what I’d see at this. So I’d take some pictures, have a look around enough so that I could report on it, and get the hell out.
I realize that from a vantage point of the NYSD, New York must seem like one long continuous never ending party. It certainly seems that way to this writer at times. On and on and on, they go. Nothing changes -- except the faces which come and go just like T.S. Eliot’s women talking of Michelangelo.
So I get down to Mr. Chow’s last night and arrive just as a gaggle of the velvet downtowners or the rockers from Park Avenue got out of their big black shiny SUVs and streamed into the restaurant.
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| Autumn in bloom along the Hudson River. |
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I give one of the girls at the door my name. She goes rifling through the pages on her clipboard (they must have been expecting hundreds). She can’t find it. Will I repeat the name. I repeat it. She goes back rifling through. Then, as another group of arrivals go streaming past, another girl with clipboard joins her in what’s the problem.
I’m annoyed. I’m thinking how much of a drag it was stop by to see what I already knew would be your typical hip New York restaurant ratf**k, as my late friend Judy Green used to call them.
Mr. Chow’s is nothing if not hip. Expensive hip, Asian/fusion ne plus ultra. Mr. Chow himself exemplifies ultimate post-Modern hip in the West. He is cool, he is very successful and his product is good. He is Art. Rockers, money to burn hipsters and their entourages go to his place as do the society girls who’d like nothing better. And the food is The Best. And so’s the bill. I never go to Mr. Chow’s. I can’t even afford to find out if I could afford it.
Meanwhile, last night, after a very good dinner with a friend. I’m standing outside Mr. Chow’s and they still can’t find the name. I explain the emails that afternoon. The emails before that I’d ignored.
It so happens that these girls work for a woman I’ve known all her life. In fact her mother and father are my closest long time friends. But she’s not around, and my name isn’t on the list. Oh geezus, what am I doing here?
Now I’m on my way to angry. And the girls with the clipboard are afraid of god knows what will happen if they let the wrong person in (among all those hundreds of “right” persons) and I can see how I might look menacing. We’re talking about going into a cocktail party in a restaurant.
This is not a frequent problem, as it happens. If it were, I’d quit quick. In my end of the business, the door is most always open -- and sometimes they’ll even carry you in if you’d like. People are generally gracious and hospitable, and even eager to please (which is a real winner). Which makes everything easier for everyone.
But sometimes that’s not the way it is. Sometimes it’s one of the worst aspects of social life in New York -- the phony exclusivity of entry. This particular custom began with Steve Rubell and Studio 54. It was the first time the general public witnessed a kind of flaunting of discrimination marketed as exclusivity. For the hip. Especially the hip. Rubell turned it into almost-street theatre. Now it’s just some intern with a clipboard looking blankly at her future: what did you say your name was?
I’m laughing now that I write this but at the time all I could think of was getting the hell out. Did I need another picture of Tinsley tonight (I’m assuming she’d be there). Or the kids from Gossip Girls. Well, the truth is I’d go for it. Just to get the picture. Just to show you, dear reader. Always thinking of you.
I left. Annoyed but relieved. Home at last! The dogs were real glad to see me. And vice versa. |
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