OPERA HOUSE
Byline:
Although the 75th anniversary of the Salzburg Opera Festival won’t take place until August, some Parisians are already beginning to celebrate.
Sao Schlumberger opened her legendary apartment last week for a party in connection with the upcoming event, and when the talk wasn’t about opera, it was about the abode.
The hostess — clad in a brown lacy Valentino dress — took the opportunity to respond to some recent remarks made about her home by Rosemarie Kanzler, who described it as “bad Visconti” and “overdone.”
“Poor Rosemarie must be terminally ill to say those things,” Schlumberger said. “You know that she has never been here?” Those who will never be able to make that claim included Bernadette Chirac, whose husband, Jacques — the mayor of Paris — is campaigning for president of France, plus such social luminaries as Henry Racamier, Marc Bohan, Lise Toubon, Helene David-Weill, Jean-Charles and Jackie de Ravenel, Maiko and Vere Harmsworth.
When the guests gathered for dinner, they did not have to sit at separate tables. The Schlumberger dining room includes a rectangular table that was able to accommodate all 40 guests.
Schlumberger turned up that same week at Pierre Passebon’s gallery for an exhibit of Marianne Haas’s photographs entitled “Parfums.” The photos — magnified images of flowers — made some observers question their identity.
“I feel like an insect looking at them,” said Passebon.