The Crowd: Musco arts center at Chapman opens with spectacular gala

Seven years of planning, fundraising and construction, with an investment of some $80 million, culminated in a gala opening night March 19 for Chapman University’s Musco Center for the Arts. It was nothing less than a milestone occasion in the life of a community that has, over the last several decades, taken the high road in terms of cultural advancement.

This lofty path can be attributed to the leadership of citizenry.

In the case of the Musco, principal benefactors Sebastian Paul and Marybelle Musco, longtime residents of Newport Beach now residing in a high-rise Irvine penthouse overlooking the county that has brought them success in business over some five decades since arriving from Chicago in the early 1970s, opening night was surely a realization of a lifelong dream.

For Paul Musco, as he prefers to be called, the achievement is the veritable tipping point of one man’s personal quest to give back, to make a difference in the world he was given an opportunity to make a life in.

Born in Rhode Island as the son of a hard-working, close-knit Sicilian Italian family, Musco, now 90, would wind up working in the metals business that eventually took him to Chicago to work for a firm where he would meet his life partner, Marybelle.

Musco, then in his 40s, would marry his young bride: a classy, admittedly super-organized perfectionist and equally motivated businesswoman and partner to Paul. Together they would take the leap, leave Chicago and come to Orange County to start their own metals firm, Gemini Industries.

When asked about his success, Musco simply states, “Hard work.”

That hard work would allow the couple to donate $39 million as the seed to create the Musco Center for the Arts.

Additional major funding has come from high-profile donors, including George and Julianne Argyros, Wylie and Bette Aitken, Thomas and Sharon Malloy, Daniel Temianka and Zeinab Dabbah, Marc and Eva Stern, Milan Panic, Dale and Sarah Fowler and many more Orange County philanthropists who believe in the Chapman destiny, which has been in the unique hands of retiring President Jim Doti for nearly three decades.

VIPs spotted in the opening night crowd included Mary and Phil Lyons, Rusty and Bill Hood, as well as Women of Chapman leaders Adrienne Brandes, Kathy Hamilton, Anne Manassero, Barbara Eidson and Donna Bunce. Also front and center were Hyla Bertea, Pamela Selber and Wayne “Mick” Mickler, Antonio Cagnolo, Dr. Gregory Robertson, David Henley, Gail Soderling and — best dressed of the night — Michelle Horowitz with husband David Horowitz.

In a very important sense, the realization of the Musco center has also been a crowning achievement in the career at Chapman for Doti, who has overseen remarkable growth, including the creation of business, law and cinema schools, among many notable achievements.

In exemplary Chapman fashion, the campus shone like Ronald Reagan’s “city on a hill.” The roughly 1,000 guests arrived at 5 p.m. in cars that streamed into the pristine underground garage and were greeted by an army of valets. Another brigade of energetic and polite Chapman students, all donning red blazers, were positioned throughout campus to direct and assist the large crowd coming to experience the Musco.

Coming up the steps from the garage to the main campus level, patrons had a short walk to the reveal of the theater just next to the Wallace All Faiths Chapel.

The architecture of the Musco is in harmony with the overall master plan at the university. It can best be described as stately, a blending of traditional meeting contemporary with an infusion of 1930s deco modern.

Designed by Pfeiffer Partners, with acoustics by the acclaimed Yasuhisa Toyota and Nagata Acoustics — responsible for such projects as the Walt Disney Concert Hall — the Musco has garnered critical praise for its sound. One critic has labeled the theater “the finest venue of its size on the West Coast.”

Producers of the opening night program enlisted world-class tenor-turned-baritone and LA Opera’s Plácido Domingo to front the nearly two-hour operatic showcase designed to present the theater to the community.

Joining Domingo were fellow standouts Deborah Voigt and Milena Kitic accompanied by the Los Angeles Opera Orchestra conducted by John DeMain.

Also on the program were Chapman alums who have gone on to respectable careers on national and international stages. A performance by Weston Olson singing “Bring Him Home” from “Les Misérables” and fellow Chapman alum John Nuzzo singing the aria “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s “Turandot” opera were among the highlights.

Also deserving praise for their contribution were Dennis Kelly, Efrain Solis, Bruce Sledge, Stacey Tappan, Deborah Domanski and Ben Bliss. The soloists were joined by the Chapman University Singers and Alum Choir all performing onstage with a spectacular set reminiscent of a Venetian palace, which was on loan from LA Opera.

Master of ceremonies duties were handled with enthusiasm by the Musco’s grandson Alex David, a young actor, and Chapman graduate.

Following the curtain call was a standing ovation for Domingo and cast and then a Champagne toast outside the theater on its extensive lawn. Dinner followed in a massive white tent erected in front of Memorial Hall for patrons donating $2,500 per person and more to celebrate the very special evening in Orange County.

THE CROWD runs Fridays. B.W. Cook is editor of the Bay Window, the official publication of the Balboa Bay Club in Newport Beach.