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Long Center gala to top all galas
We live in a city. That’s been clear for a while, if still resisted in some social quarters. For the arts crowd, the first concrete sign was the opening of the Blanton Museum of Art two years ago, allowing urbane presentation of sometimes first-rate art and stimulating conversation about creativity across an already creative capital.
Jane Sibley, Charles Butt
All doubts about urbanity — or social collaboration — were swept aside this weekend with the gala opening of the Long Center for the Performing Arts, which finally gives indigenous artists a first-class stage, ending an ancient dependence on the University of Texas for cultural amenities. Independent, participatory, economically and environmentally conscious, the Long Center is a social gem as well as a cultural one.
Teresa Long, Joe Long, Bobbi Topfer
Not everybody was impressed. A couple from Dallas was overheard saying: “The place we’re building (for Dallas Opera) is far more luxurious.” Yeah, well, Dallas, you didn’t recycle 97 percent of an ugly, virtually useless original structure, mount fundraising during a citywide financial bust, ensure space for more than 200 indigenous arts groups or keep the per-square-foot cost at less than a third of most modern performing arts centers. As the Long Center’s backers are fond of repeating, once construction began, it came in on time, on budget and paid for. Take that, Dallas.
Pamela Ott, Marc Ott
Friday’s festivities started with a majestic procession past circus-style artists and continued in the deliberately narrow lobbies and reception halls of the center itself. (Most performing arts centers spend half their floor space on lobbies; in this one, the performances took first priority in a tight budget.)
Gail Kodosky, Jeff Kodosky
Before the sun had set, Austin’s notables turned out in their fanciest evening wear, sipping cocktails and expressing disbelief that the building was actually finished.
Jenna Salwen, Jill Salwen, Jan Slagter
Jim Smith, Jare Smith
Michelle Valles, Ray Benson
Performances from Austin arts groups came next, and I’ll leave the evaluation of their work, as usual, to arts writer Jeanne Claire van Ryzin.
Dr. Bill Jones, Anton Nel
But several patrons raved about the short piano piece by Anton Nel, proving the center’s resident grand piano is grand indeed, every note pristine, clear; and the thematic choral finale, especially Craig Hella Johnson leading a combined chorus of several hundred with the Austin Symphony Orchestra in Leonard Bernstein’s “Make Our Garden Grow.” Chilling.
Robert Faires, Barbara Chisholm
Dinner in the special events tent with views of the Austin skyline was ecstasy. Every table was surrounded by familiar faces of the famous and not-so. One celebrant whispered into my ear: “This must be like birdwatching to you.”
Dale Dewey, Karen Landa, Michael Smothers, Sergio Durante
Flo MacNary, Ren MacNary (he’s wearing his ancestor’s beaverskin top hat)
Kristen Habich, Robert Weylandt
I joined the table of John and Julie Thornton (who just purchased a pied-a-terre in the Upper East Side on Central Park), and our group included Mayor Will Wynn and his consort, Wendy Poston, (and yes, mayor, everything said at the table was off the record), reserved City Manager Marc Ott and his dazzling wife, Pamela, Wynn’s chief of staff Rich Bailey, Brilliant magazine’s Lance Avery Morgan and City of Austin cultural czar Vince Kitch, who’s done a crackerjack job ending Austin’s arts wars.
Julie Thornton, Vincent Kitch
Nancy Scanlan, Congressman Lloyd Doggett
The biggest stars of the night, though, were mega-donors Teresa and Joe Long, Susan and Michael Dell, Bobbi and Mort Topfer (she put together most of the evening’s festivities), along with Sarah and Ernest Butler (who just pledged $55 million to UT’s School of Music), Lynn and Tom Meredith, Gail and Jeff Kodosky, James Armstrong and Larry Connelly, and the list goes on… We congratulated Long Center staff, including the miraculous Cliff Redd, always alert Robert Brown and his partner, Dennis Karbach, and longtime LC backers Jane Sibley, Jare Smith (we didn’t see the third “J,” Jo Anne Christian), Ben Bentzin, Steve Davis, Joan Plaster and Stan Haas, and the quiet man of influence on the structure’s outcome, Michael Guarino.
Joan Plaster, Stan Haas
Alan Green, Connie Green, Michael Guarino
Tom Meredith, Lorrie Moritz
Among the media and artists, we greeted were dignified emcee Tommy Tune, peacocking columnist Stephen MacMillan Moser, power pair Michelle Valles and Ray Benson (aren’t they the most likeable couple?), naturally glamorous Barbara Chisholm and Robert Faires, Austin Lyric Opera’s Kevin Patterson and Richard Buckley, Peter Bay’s beautifully expectant wife Sarah Jane.
Sarah Jane Bay, Tommy Tune
Gay Youngblood, Daniel Becker, Samantha Adams
We also chatted with former UT President Larry Faulkner, Congressman Lloyd Doggett, Rep. Mark Strama, classy Nancy Scanlan, vivacious Karen Landa, brilliantly outfitted Anne Elizabeth Wynn, H-E-B top man Charles Butt (again, after the Westlake Market gala), UT Dean Doug Dempster, UT developer Sondra Lomax, Chez Zee’s Sharon Watkins and former Paramount don Paul Beutel, Zach Theatre’s Elisbeth Challener and husband Brett Bachman, Sergio Durante and Michael Smothers, and New Orleans maven Matilda Stream (owner of the Evergreen Plantation and somebody who knows about multigenerational wealth, virtually absent in Austin).
Matilda Stream, Bob Emerson
Stephen Moser and friend
Anne Elizabeth Wynn
These and thousands of others beamed with pride at a city which, only 10 years ago, could barely raise $1 million for an arts project, much less the $160 million-plus it took to build the city’s first real art museum and municipal performing arts center.
For complete coverage of the Long Center go to our special Long Center home page.
Permalink | Comments (7) | Post your comment Categories: Arts, Fame, Out
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By Alex
August 14, 2008 11:38 AM | Link to this
Your blog is interesting!
Keep up the good work!
By Mike
March 31, 2008 9:55 PM | Link to this
Wow, Michelle Valles is gorgeous.
By Elizabeth Mills
March 31, 2008 9:54 PM | Link to this
Loved your comments to Dallas! Also glad you met Mr. Butts. A dream of all Vener Barnes'kids.
By David Ohlerking II
March 31, 2008 3:43 PM | Link to this
That Moser dude is fierce, baby.
By Jeannette Cook
March 31, 2008 3:41 PM | Link to this
Thanks for your quick reply. I suppose I was grumpy, in part, because the Horns didn't make it to the Final Four.
The pictures you have added to your blog are great.
Jeannette
By Michael Barnes
March 31, 2008 2:41 PM | Link to this
Jeanette, We've covered the Long Center exhaustively since the first informal meetings in the early 1990s. When the center opened to the public a few weeks ago, we devoted some dozen stories before and after. This weekend, we sent two photographers and two reporters. My report will appear in my column Tuesday (prominently), and my photos on Thursday. We'll also have better photos from Robert Godwin in Glossy. Unfortunately, the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tourney bumped the Long Center gala photos off Page 1 (they ran inside Saturday and Sunday).
By Jeannette Cook
March 31, 2008 2:00 PM | Link to this
Nice article, Michael; however, I am disappointed that the A.A.S. felt the Long Center Opening only rated a blog. My friends and I combed the papers Saturday and Sunday following two glittering evenings that really put Austin on the performance map. Pictures? Anecdotes? Descriptive paragraphs? Performance critiques? Nary a one. Then I realized: With so few 10K Marathons to be run in Austin, that event certainly took precedence over the opening of a multi-million dollar cultural center that, to quote you and Joe Long, came in "on time, on budget and fully paid for".
I hope your column tomorrow will carry a bit of information about the opening for people who don't use 360.com. Too little, too late, of course; but welcome just the same.