 |
|
|
 |
|
Scene
through a mirror at Brooke Duchin's home. 7:25 PM.
Photo: JH.
|
|
Brooke
Hayward Duchin held another one of her intime fundraisers for
her favorite music-maker (outside of her husband Peter
Duchin who was down in Argentina fishing – really) – the
Gotham Chamber Opera Company (“where opera gets intimate”)
at the Duchins’ quite (very) eclectic loft which is located
not quite downtown, (Brooke can sit in her bath and gaze up at
the Empire State Building), but far enough from the UES that the
smart set attending have to come by limousine or cab (I took the
subway).
|
Anthony
Paige and Brooke Hayward Duchin
|
|
These are swell
little parties – forty or fifty opera lovers
mostly. Neal Goren, the musical director of the
Gotham Chamber Opera introduces the singers and tells the assembled
a little something
about the operas they have planned for the next season. Chamber
Operas if you didn’t know (and I didn’t) are smaller
operas that can be done on not quite a shoe-string but far far
from a Franco Zefferelli budget.
Perfect little sandwiches (ham&cheese, tomato&something,
chopped watercress&cucumber, smoked salmon on dark bread),
cups of butternut squash soup and devilled eggs and drinks.
So the guests stand around and gnosh (daintily or genteely of course)
and sip and chat and about seven-fifteen Mr. Goren announces the
next opera and a couple of performers come out and with Mr. Goren’s
piano accompaniment, they perform a segment of the upcoming opera.
It’s the perfect kind of cocktail party for opera lovers.
And then afterwards, as everyone is leaving, someone hands out
an envelope to take home and fill with a check if you wish. If
you don’t wish, no one will know. If you do, the GCO will
not only know but flourish. People give $10 to $10,000 and it all
goes to a very good cause, obviously. Brooke and Peter Duchin stage
about three or four of these and they’re a big hit – the
food, the crowd, the music and performances and the theatre that
the D’s call home.
JH and the Digital was there, as you can see. I saw Liz
Fondaras, Boaz Mazor, Bill Rondina, Lew Miano, Mark Newhouse, Erik
Boman
and Peter Schlesinger, Peter Vaughan, Edmee Firth, Alex Hitz, Jamie
Figg, Gene Young, Tiziana and Hugh Hardy, Judy Auchincloss, Johnny
Moore, Karen Lerner (who is president of the GCO board), Grace
Kennan Warnecke, Julian Pfeiffer, Elaine Ng (the company’s
managing director), Ellen and Jim Marcus, Wendy Vanderbilt,
Anthony Paige who is currently enjoying at hit on Broadway
with the revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” |
 |
Lew
Miano, Peter Schlesinger, and Eric Bowman
|
|
 |
Lew
Miano, Bill Rondina, and Peter Rogers
|
|
 |
Gene
Young with her sister
|
|
 |
Ellen
Marcus, Jay Cantor, and Rosetta Miller
|
|
 |
Mark
Newhouse and James Marcus
|
|
 |
Wendy
Lehman, Neal Goren, and Elizabeth Fondaras
|
|
|
DPC
and Boaz Mazor
|
|
 |
Abby
Field, Olivia Pirovano, and Elaine Ng
|
|
 |
Amanda
Forsythe, Vale Rideout, and Karen Lerner
|
|
|
Edmee
Firth
|
|
|
And
One More Thing … A Mother’s Advice
On Life, Love, and Lipstick. Click cover
to order. |
 |
John
and Caitlin Tashjiian, Joan's daughter to whom the
book was written. |
|
From
the Gotham Chamber Opera party it was up to the
Fifth Avenue apartment of Leena and Gil Kaplan for
the book party hosted by Mrs. Kaplan, Suzanne Maas, Kathleen
Gerard, Leila Straus and Kevin Abernathy for Joan
Jakobson who has just published And One More Thing … A
Mother’s Advice On Life, Love, and Lipstick, with
an introduction by Wendy Wasserstein. The Kaplans’ enormous
living room with its western views of the Reservoir, Central
Park West and the sunset, was packed with friends of the author
and her husband John Jakobson. The Jakobsons
have so many friends that if they could get everyone to buy a
book, Joan would have a bestseller hands-down.
The book is
dedicated to Joan’s mother, Jane Welt, “who
informed me when I was seventeen that if I insisted on staying out past
my curfew, I would be considered a Glad Girl. Years later, when I asked
her exactly what a “Glad Girl” was, she said she had no idea
and made it up on the spot. She taught me that when you are the mother
of a daughter, you use whatever works.”
Joan of course has a daughter – Caitlin, who is
pictured here with her husband John Tashjian – who
is the ostensible reason for the book (the real reason is Joan likes to
write, likes to give advice and can’t resist the possibility of a
good laugh). In the intro, she writes:
Despite the fact that, according to some, I look like
a middle-aged woman from the suburbs who drives a minivan,
my life did not always proceed on a proper course. After
Caitlin’s father and I divorced when she was five years
old, I fell in love with a married man and had a baby boy
with him before his divorce was final. During this time,
I had the deeply dubious distinction of being the first unwed,
pregnant class mother in the history of my daughter’s
very traditional school. However, because I wrote my thank-you
notes promptly and never wore a T-shirt that said “Beer
Is Food” to the Middle School Parents’ Night
Dinner, everyone survived. (Except my father.) |
 |
Anna
Quindlen and Joan Jakobson
|
|
 |
Paige
Peterson, Liz Robbins, Joan Jakobson, and Susan Patricoff
|
|
 |
Barbara
Uzielli with Chris and Grace Meigher
|
|
 |
Lisa
Bernbach, Sarah Rosenthal, and Tracey Zabar
|
|
 |
Looking
west across the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir towards
the El Dorado towers from the windows of the Kaplan apartment
|
From
the Jakobson party, it was down to the Calvin Klein store
for another book party, of quite a different flavor. Perfect
for the Digital (I brought mine). Bryan Adams began
photographing a cross section of influential American women
dressed in Calvin Klein back in November 2003. The result
turned out to be a tribute to the beauty, strength and character
of these actors, journalists, musicians, artists, businesswomen,
athletes, philanthropists and socialites. A lot of Mr. Adams’ subjects
were there last night. Profits from the sale of the signed
books and photographs will benefit breast cancer research
programs at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center through
the Society of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
|
Click cover to order |
|
In the crowd: Christina Applegate, Katie Holmes, Katie Couric, Paula
Zahn, Dr. Sherrell and Muffie Potter Aston, Gilles and Kelly Bensimon, Samnatha
Boardman, Tory and Chris Burch, Jennifer and Larry Creel, Jamie Creel, Patrick
and Mia Demarchelier, Ahn Duong, Somers White, Thom Filicia, Chris and Grace
Meigher, Sharon King Hoge (who was catching an eleven-thirty plane for
Taiwan), Nina Griscom and Leonel Piraino, Helen Lee
Schifter, Ingrid Sischy, George Farias, Andrew Saffir, Jeff and Justine Koons,
Evelyn and Leonard Lauder, Sally and Rufus Albemarle, Blair Hussain, Anne and
Amanda Hearst, Jane Rosenthal, Carol McFadden, Jamee and Peter Gregory,
and on and on, and on.
There were 500 acceptances to this party and when I arrived about 8:15, it was
mob scene. So I wandered through quickly with the Digital, as you can see. |
 |
Helen
Lee Schifter and R. Couri Hay
|
|
 |
Mallory
Kean
|
|
|
Fiona
Thomas and Hud Morgan
|
|
|
|
 |
Amanda
Hearst
|
|
|
 |
Erin
Leopold
|
|
 |
Tory
Burch
|
|
|
A
portrait of Tory Burch by Bryan Adams
|
|
 |
Renee
Rockefeller and Sally Albemarle
|
|
 |
Rose
Hartman
|
|
|
Nan
Kempner
|
|
 |
Muffie
Potter Aston and Anne Hearst
|
|
 |
Muffie
Potter Aston by Bryan Adams
|
|
|
Jennifer
Creel by Bryan Adams
|
|
 |
Anh
Duong
|
|
 |
Alexis
Bryan and Alia Ahmed-Yahia
|
|
|
Chris
Spitzmiller and Melanie Seymour
|
|
From
there it was up to Swifty’s where I thought
I’d catch a bite, solo, as it were, before hitting
the keyboard. Forget it; another mob scene. Lee Thaw was
giving a big dinner in the backroom: Pat Buckley,
Victor Shafferman, Kathleen Hearst, Daisy and Paul Soros,
Larry Lovett and his sister-in-law Mrs.
Lovett (Larry’s sister-in-law), John
Loring, Sam and Judy Peabody, Ezra Zilkha, Aileen Mehle,
Nan and Tommy Kempner, Doda Voridis, Kenny Lane, the Honorable
Harry Fane, Bettina Zilkha, Pierre Durand, Kartika Soekarno,
Victor Barcimanto, Pat Patterson and George
McNeely. Meanwhile at separate tables: Cece
and Lee Black were entertaining, as well as Geoffrey
Bradfield with Lord and Lady Guthrie; Kristi
Whitker and Dick Coons with Bill and Kitty
McKnight, the Meighers with Wendy
Vanderbilt and Jamie Figg, Jim Kaufman with Louise
Noyes, Couri Hay with Anne Hearst and George
Farias. Also Stephanie Krieger, Jo Hallingby,
Roy and Mallory Kean, Bob Colacello.
A beautiful night in New York ... |
|
|
|
|
