D AV I D PAT R I C K C O L U M B I A Weymouth and Joe Cohen, Dr. Mahnaz and Adam Bartos, Stephen Aronson, Jane and Peter Marino, David and Shelley Wanger Mortimer, Yue-Sai Kan, Gigi Mortimer, Kyle and Zibby Owens, Sharon Bush, Crystal McCrary, Ken and Kathy Chenault, Pilar Queen and Andrew Ross Sorkin, Beth Kojima, Sean MacPherson and Rachelle Hruska, Gay and Nan Talese, and now my memory is beginning to doze off. Needless to say a great crowd, all of whom seemed to be delighting in the pleasure of this great evening in this extraordinary landmark building and room. After the cocktail reception
and the guests were seated, Evan Chesler, chairman of the Library, opened the evening, and introduced Tony Marx, the Library’s president and CEO, spoke about the Library and its progress with technology putting every book ever written online, as well as the billion-dollar plans for expanding the Library’s facilities. After the remarks of Chesler and Marx, that was it for the speeches. We were then shown video interviews with each of this year’s honorees. These are interesting despite being brief, for it gives everyone a glimpse of the personalities, all of which are uniquely interesting and human sans their public
stature. Then a former honoree, Renée Fleming, went up to the stage, along with musicians Christian McBride and Dan Tepfer, and with Jessye Norman, in duo they sang “Bacarolle” from The Tales of Hoffman. The two were in beautiful voice singing to each other across the room. Norman was seated at the head of the table next to ours, so I was no more than six or eight feet from her and the voice, and the woman were magic to the eye—larger than life. While up on the stage, Fleming matched the beauty and the voice. The two created a special thrill for everyone. After their duet, the 2018
Lions received their medals. Instead of gathering in a line on stage, this year each honoree received the medal at their place at the table while another member of the table assisted in presenting and placing it, all under a spotlight so everyone in the room could see. Following the presentation, Renee Fleming gave us another song: Cole Porter’s “Down in the Depths (On the 90th Floor),” written for Ethel Merman in the 1936 Broadway musical Red, Hot and Blue. Fleming ain’t Merman (and vice versa), but she’s beautiful and so is her voice and she made it her own. (“With a million neon
PA R K AV E N U E A R MO RY ’ S I N D I G O B A L L
Jared Feldman and Deborah van Eck 46 QUEST
Tom and Heidi McWilliams with Sam Ewing
Sarah Arison and Nina Hollein
Natalie Kaplan and Dini von Mueffling
Lauren Day Roberts with Peter and Nina Taselaar
PAT R I C K M C M U LL A N
Marina Kellen French