People: Grand Night in a Superbunker

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All night, emotions ran high. Tears and cheers for the music made for a loud, if damp, ovation. At the end of the première, Bernstein wept helplessly as the audience thundered its applause, then launched into a marathon fit of kissing everyone in reach. "May I kiss you one more time?" he asked Rose Kennedy. Said Rose gently; "I think it will ruin my makeup." Tact may have accounted for some of the praise, but in the case of 87-year-old Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt and one of Washington's more outspoken oldtimers, tact was beside the point. "I liked Hair better," said Alice.

The building also came in for some deservedly devastating comments. At Tuesday's preview, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey had declared: "It has class, dignity. I love it." But many disagreed with Humphrey. New York Times Architecture Critic Ada Louise Huxtable called the building "a superbunker. One more like this and the city will sink. The corridors would be great for drag racing."

Kisses and tears out of the way, along with the Mass, it became President Richard Nixon's show the next night, when the Concert Hall—a far more tasteful room—opened with a performance by Conductor Antal Dorati and the city's National Symphony. The Nixons' guest was Mamie Eisenhower, who got a standing ovation from the audience—though probably few remembered that it was President Dwight D. Eisenhower, not J.F.K., who gave the Center its first impetus back in 1958 by pushing legislation through Congress.

Another guest had more to muse on than most: Contralto Marian Anderson. In 1939, she had been refused permission by the Daughters of the American Revolution to sing in Constitution Hall because she is black. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the D.A.R., and Anderson sang instead on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Last week, Miss Anderson sat in the presidential box.