Our annual Holiday Luncheon, which we missed last year due to COVID, was at the beautiful Seattle Tennis Club which, as always, had exquisite holiday decorations. We had a professional recording company, Mirror Sound, recording our performers, and Jay Wakefield, my husband, is arranging to have 100 CDs and 100 DVDs available for free after this event. (Members will be able to request getting a free copy sent to them.) Jay is doing this to encourage membership in the Seattle Opera Guild.
65 members and guests attended, almost the most recent pre-COVID numbers. We dined on chicken piccata, roasted vegetable tower, or roasted chicken with rice and vegetables—with plated desserts of lemon bars, blueberries and strawberries. Gift baskets, put together by our event coordinator, Patricia Pavia, were won by Paul Maffeo (the fruit basket) and Laura Superville of the Seattle Opera staff who won the wine basket, worth $150 with three bottles of wine, a cheese tray, and a corkscrew. Christina Scheppelmann, General Director of Seattle Opera, won one of the Amazon gift cards worth $100, and Emily Hartley won the other. (Ann Milam and Sally Buckingham donated the $100 Amazon gift cards.)
The program started with introductions by Patricia Pavia, followed by Suzy who introduced Lesley Chapin Wykoff, President of the Seattle Opera Board of Trustees. Then Christina Scheppelmann gave us an update on upcoming operas. Other staff members who joined us and sat with preview groups were Jane Repensek, CFO and CEO of Seattle Opera, Alejandra Valarino Boyer, Director of Programs and Partnerships, and Lauren Superville, Individual Giving Manager. Suzy also introduced our sponsor at the Seattle Tennis Club, Mark Metcalf.
Suzy then honored five past presidents, who have given so much support to the Guild over the past many years, with a special gift: Gayle Charlesworth (2017-2020), Christine Szabadi (2015-2017), Florence Rose-Thompson (2011-2013), Marlene Holbrook (2009-2011) and Betty Carter (2002-2003). Some of these past Board presidents have served the Guild for 20 years or more! Sally Buckingham was again honored for her Award of Distinction.
Our singers were Grace Skinner, mezzo-soprano, winner of the Guild’s Singers Development Fund auditions in September 2021, and Ivy Zhou, soprano, finalist from the year before. Elisabeth Ellis accompanied them on the piano. They performed opera favorites: “Caro nome” from Verdi’s Rigoletto, Belle Nuit from Les Contes d’Hoffman by Offenbach, and “O Zittre Nacht” from Die Zauberflöte by Mozart. They also treated us to festive music of the season. Both singers displayed great stage presence.