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Opening Night Dinner for ‘Flight’ at Austin City Hall
I never expected to attend three Austin Lyric Opera social events in the space of one week. But backers like Wendi Kushner, Richard Hartgrove and Amalia Rodriguez-Mendoza are pretty persuasive when they want to be.
Larry Steinmann and Sue Shearer
Friday was La Noche de Opera at the Cat Mountain home of Joe and Lilliana Garcia. Saturday was the Opening Night Dinner at Austin City Hall. This coming Wednesday, I’ll see Jonathan Dove’s opera “Flight” during the Long Center run that ends Sunday.
Anita Ashton and Graydon Parrish
How does one give a dinner at City Hall? Funny you should ask: Put a buffet in a conference room; position a bar in the main lobby and another on the mayor’s balcony; then offer desserts near the exit, where the shuttle bus takes the patrons across the Drake Bridge to the performing arts center.
Jo Anne Cristian, Cis Meyers and Peter Martino
The experience is fragmented, but hardly fruitless. Several women were wearing jewelry from Peter Martino, the jet-setter introduced to Austin society by painter Graydon Parrish. Among the more spectacular pieces was worn by leading patron Jo Anne Christian.
Julie Byers and Mayor Lee Leffingwell
I caught up a bit with Austin Symphony Orchestra conductor Peter Bay, agile connector Anita Ashton, energetic philanthropists Andrew and Mary Ann Heller, stylish storytellers Larry Steinmann and Sue Shearer, and several others before pushing on to the next two parties.
As usual, our hard-working Mayor Lee Leffingwell escaped my clutches as soon as I took his happy snap. Someday, we’ll have a real conversation.
If he wants. I never push when the situation is purely social. Well, almost never.
Correction: The headline misspelled the title of the opera in a previous version of this post.
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By Hannah Amateur
April 27, 2011 8:13 AM | Link to this
Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.