Celebrating joie de vivre and a Canadian legend

Bruce Bailey’s Canadian Fête Champêtre in Support of The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Outside of Toronto

The fall social season has only just begun, but Bruce Bailey’s Canadian Fête Champêtre in support of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), thrown Sept. 23 at the arts patron’s sprawling country estate, sets the bar high. The inaugural event, based on the fancy dress garden parties popular in 18th-century France, marked the first gala given outside of Quebec to raise funds for the MMFA. The crowd was a blend of the two provinces (there were actually guests from every province, but Ontario and Quebec made up the majority) and the afternoon featured almost everything that contributes to a great bash: a dose of imagination, a helping of whimsy, and a plethora of party-goers of varying backgrounds – all of whom made a tremendous effort to look wonderful and contribute to the festivities.

Guests at the luncheon, prepared by chef Cory Vitiello, included a flamenco dancer, a scuba diver, a curator of old masters, gallerists, bankers and countless contemporary artists and the collectors who love them. A handful of performances were on offer too, including one by the Trinity College Chapel Choir, and later the Canadian Opera Company’s music director Johannes Debus, classical guitarist Liona Boyd and opera singer Ambur Braid, who was holding Walter, her beloved miniature black poodle, who sung right along with her. On the fancy dress front: Mary Dailey-Desmarais dressed as Pierrot, Trinity Jackman honoured her Scottish roots with a tartan cap topped with fur pom pom, Vanessa Mulroney and Belinda Stronach wore dirndl while Michael Liebrock went for lederhosen. Around the bucolic property guests could be seen frolicking in a variety of self-made creations, rented replicas of 18th-century garb, and hats festooned with any combination of plumes, pearls or fruits. The artful day in the Ontario countryside raised $400,000 for the museum’s acquisitions fund.

2018 Stratford Festival Gala Honouring Megan Follows, Toronto

The next evening, back in Toronto, the eighth-annual Stratford Festival Gala was under way at the Four Seasons Hotel. Actor/director Megan Follows, best known for her part as Anne, in the 1985 miniseries Anne of Green Gables, was being honoured for her work at the festival and for her contributions to stages and screens in this country. Singing her praises onstage was Margaret Atwood, writer of the play The Penelopiad, in which Follows has starred. Also Megan’s mother, acting legend Dawn Greenhalgh, was joined on stage by Follows’s son and daughter, making for a lovely multigenerational melange. Stratford Festival artistic director Antoni Cimolino, who starred alongside the guest of honour in the 1992 production of Romeo and Juliet, spoke too, and presented Follows with the festival’s Legacy Award (Martha Henry and Dame Maggie Smith are among the others who have been honoured). The wonderful Sara Farb performed and lively remarks by co-chairs Wendy Pitblato and Barry Avrich, my host, were made too. The evening raised funds that will support, among other projects, Stratford Festival’s new Patterson Centre, set to open in 2020.

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