Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Main Street

Mary Ann Cook

Opera San José tags Los Gatan for commission

COMMISSIONED OPERA: For the first time ever, Opera San José has commissioned an opera, and the composer-to-be is Los Gatan Craig Bohmler. The opera should be ready for its premiere in November 1999, and will be an operatic version of The Nutcracker. Librettist Daniel Helfgot is the resident stage director of Opera San José. Bohmler has impressive credits. His Enter the Guardsman won first place in the Musical of the Year International Competition in Denmark last year and is currently playing London's West End, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Really Useful Company.

Other Bohmler award-winners have been The Achilles Heel, an opera, and Gunmetal Blues, a musical with an off-Broadway run that has been produced more than 30 times in the U.S. and Canada. To those who would ask why he would undertake The Nutcracker, Bohmler says, "Tchaikovsky's music is the most famous music in Western culture, and I can't stress that enough. The reason we need to retell a fairy tale is because it teaches us the same thing today [as it did in the past], and we still need to know it. That this young woman might look around her and wonder how she fits in with these people [her family] and discovers she doesn't exactly belong, I think, is a common experience for young people. 'Who are these people?' she must have asked.

"The world has a lot of the grand and impersonal. I would like to bring some things that are comprehensible and involving on a more intimate level. This commission is an opportunity for me to do what I most love, and to do it right where I live."

FIRST NOVEL for Richard Warren Field, who grew up in Monte Sereno and is the son of Joseph and Judy Field. Joseph Field is a retired orthopedic surgeon. Field's book is The Election and is scheduled to come out Nov. 4, as befits its title, but there's a copy already lying in wait for you at the L.G. Library. Publisher's Weekly calls The Election "a fast-paced...fantasy of third-party politics." An alternative presidential candidate, who was a Berkeley student in the '60s, provokes scandal and assassination with his bid for the White House, with the electoral college cast as a ticking bomb. Field currently lives in Tarzana with his wife and two children. Infortainment Publishing Company is the publisher, and its address is P.O. Box 571752, Tarzana, 91357-1752.

BENEFIT SHOPPING: Local organizations such as the Art Docents of Los Gatos are part of Macy's Benefit Shopping Day Wednesday, Oct. 29. The daylong event supports local nonprofit organizations. The docents, for example, will receive $3 for every presold $10 ticket that is redeemed at the door. Cooking demos, fashion shows, discounts and refreshments are all added inducements to shop till you drop--for a cause. Contribute to local no-profits and get a jump on Christmas: sounds like a winning doubleheader. For tickets, call Paula Wike at 395-7123.

BELLARMINE BENEFIT: Working behind the scenes on the Bellarmine Mothers' Guild 43rd fashion show are Kirstin Dickens, Carrie Arata, Mary Ann Cochrane, Janice Morimoto, Ann Renn, Deborah McNamara and Marilyn Basham. All are Los Gatans, Monte Serenans or Saratogans. "Out of This World" is this year's theme, and the show will play at lunch and dinner, Nov. 7 at the San Jose Fairmont. The event benefits the Bellarmine Scholarship Endowment Fund. Joe Sharino's band supplies the dance music and Saks Fifth Avenue, San Francisco the fashions.

WOMEN IN ROTARY: A recent Rotary Club of Los Gatos program topic featured women in Rotary. Al Kendree, Dick Karnan and Rosemary Pierce led the discussion. Mary Jo Levinger and Deborah Acosta were the first women Rotarians, inducted in November 1987. Mary Jo, who was town attorney at the time, had to resign when she was appointed a superior court judge. She said she thought her first Rotary assignment, chairing the children's pumpkin-carving picnic, might be a form of hazing until she saw the smiles on the children's faces and found it wonderful.

Acosta (who wasn't present) also had to resign when she became city manager of Pleasanton. Other women who followed these two spoke, including Los Gatos Town Councilmember Linda Lubeck, who said she always wanted "to be one of the boys." Rotary fulfills that wish, besides providing an opportunity to serve the community. Linda's back on board after taking a leave when elected to the Los Gatos Town Council. Rotary is definitely a stronger club because of the addition of women over the past 10 years, Bob Lathrop reported. How else could we truly reflect the community? he asks.

LIONS: White Cane Days raised more than $4,100 during the recent Los Gatos Lions' annual campaign earlier this month. The winning team was Ted Simonson and Bill Frey at $234.50. Raising money for the blind has been a Lions focus since 1925. They assist diabetes screening, collect used eyeglasses for the international recycle sight program, finance eye testing for young people and contribute to the Lions Blind Center of Santa Clara County.

APOLOGIES: to Nelson and Laura Goldschneider, whose names were spelled wrong in this column last week.

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