L.A.'S HOT TICKET; GETTY'S OPENING WEEK FESTIVITIES ATTRACT GLOBAL INTEREST.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

Forget Oscar and Emmy. For the next eight weeks, the most coveted ticket in Los Angeles has a new name: Getty.

To the VIP crowd, the December gala opening of the new $1 billion J. Paul Getty Center will be the scene to be seen at. Among the A-list invitees are the president and first lady of the United States, though so far the White House hasn't mailed back its R.S.V.P.

Fortune 500 CEOs and image-savvy politicos are jockeying to join the party in Brentwood.

Arts officials from around the world are lining up for sneak peeks at the Getty's world-class collection of Van Goghs, Goyas and Hockneys, newly installed in architect Richard Meier's 110-acre modernist campus.

Faxed requests for invitations are pouring in from as far away as Argentina and Israel.

``It could be the event of the year,'' said Janet Morgan, editor of Los Angeles Masterplanner, a comprehensive listing of fund-raisers, formal dress balls, testimonial dinners and other gotta-be-there outings of the local glitterati.

But the opening also is stirring interest in far less exalted circles.

For years, L.A. commuters whizzing past the Getty construction site above the San Diego Freeway have wondered just what was going on behind those imposing travertine marble walls. Simple curiosity may be the Getty's best marketing tool between now and its official Dec. 16 public opening.

``Everybody is calling. It's a hot ticket,'' said Gwen Walden, who as chief assistant to Getty Trust President and CEO Harold Williams is overseeing the inaugural festivities. ``I can't go to the dentist or the optometrist or take out the garbage without somebody saying, `When is it opening, when can I go there?' ''

Even Hollywood, historically cool to the Getty's patrician, old-money aura, has caught the scent of a major cultural happening and will be putting in several cameo appearances over the next eight weeks. Actor John Lithgow, for example, will give the keynote address at one pre-opening event, a Nov. 14-16 Kids Congress on Art.

``I think we (Hollywood) are extraordinarily interested'' in the Getty's opening, Paramount Studios head Sherry Lansing said recently. ``I must say right off the bat that I think it's the most extraordinary building I've ever seen in my life.''

All this breathless buzz seems to have put Getty staffers in something of a bind. While the attention is obviously welcome, the Getty in recent years has been trying to reshape its image as a bastion of exclusivity and profligate good taste. Any impression of black-tied swells clinking champagne glasses and scarfing shrimp canapes could undercut such efforts.

Yet officials concede that the inaugural must serve as a way for the Getty to acknowledge longtime supporters and reward steadfast friends from over the years.

``There's a tension, in a sense, between acknowledging everyone and being accessible to everyone who already knows and cares about museums, and to be accessible to people who've never been to a museum,'' said Williams, head of the umbrella Getty Trust that oversees the Getty Museum and five affiliated institutes.

``It's a struggle,'' Williams said. ``People are working on the (guest) list, and the list is infinitely longer than what we can accommodate in a single event.''

Many events

Consequently, there won't be one single, isolated event, but many between now and Dec. 16. In addition to three formal dinner galas on the evenings of Dec. 9, 10 and 11, there'll also be several weeks' worth of tours, receptions, open houses, music and dance performances, press previews and TV specials, all designed to project the image of a place that's eager to be seen both as culturally sensitive and socially diverse.

Sometime before Thanksgiving, about three to four weeks before the stretch limos roll up Sepulveda Boulevard, the Getty will throw a staff-only ``dedication ceremony'' for the new hilltop facility. That will be followed Nov. 29 and 30 by an open house for the thousands of construction workers and design crews that have labored on the project over the past dozen years. Officials anticipate hosting about 4,000 visitors each day.

``I think if you talked to them (construction workers) you would find that many of them feel this is the work of a lifetime,'' said Gwen Walden. ``Also, they represent our future audience in L.A., and we would like them to come back and bring their children.''

That same week the Getty will ask in its wealthy new neighbors from Brentwood and Bel-Air, a wise tactical move given the outcry from local homeowners that initially greeted the project.

On Dec. 6 and 7 Getty staff will be able to invite friends and family to check out their new working quarters.

Then comes the opening-week feeding frenzy, with daytime press previews for between 700 and 1,000 members of the local, national and international media, followed by night-time dinner-receptions complete with behind-the-scenes tours, formal receiving lines and ``all the requisite things that dedicate a place,'' Walden said.

Opening reception

On the morning of Dec. 13, another 1,000 to 1,200 invited guests, whose ranks Walden described as including ``important colleagues and community leaders,'' will schlep up the Getty acropolis for an opening reception. And on Dec. 14, an invited cross-section of Los Angeles will take part in a Family Festival with activities like group storytelling, dance performances and a recital by a local gospel choir.

To help popularize the opening, the Getty has issued several new publications trumpeting its history and mission, including a profusely colorful children's guidebook, ``Going to the Getty.'' (``There once lived a man named J. Paul Getty,'' the text begins. ``He sold oil.'')

In addition, the Getty several years ago hired the highly regarded documentary-making brothers David and Albert Maysles (``Gimme Shelter'') to develop a two-hour film on the center's construction. The results, 12 years in the making, will air during opening week on public television station KCET and will be rebroadcast later.

``There is conflict and drama and humor, all the things that go into making a good story,'' Walden said.

In sum, Getty staffers insist, the point of the opening isn't simply to heap glory on a dead billionaire, but to broaden the Getty's potential audience and redistribute the new facility's 15 minutes of fame to the rest of its hometown.

``The Getty Center is coming into a being at a time when L.A. is being acknowledged and recognized around the country as being a deep and rich community, and one that is representative of what large urban centers will want to be,'' Walden said. ``So the opening of the center gives us the opportunity to tell that story, not only within L.A. but outside as well. It affords us the opportunity to take the spotlight that is on us and shine it on the rest of L.A.''

That won't necessarily be easy in an area where the privileged classes have always had a knack for hogging the best camera angles. Some outside observers suggest the Getty may have a tough time striking the right balance of glamour and openness, in mixing the allure of a grand occasion with a jes'-plain-folks attitude.

``I just have to believe they're going to be sensible about those events, and that they're going to be lavish but not bowled-over in terms of expense,'' said Henry T. Hopkins, director of the UCLA Armand Hammer Museum. ``There's no question about it that it's a kind of public relations nightmare just in accommodating all the people that are going to want to come, and I know they've been working very hard to make that happen,'' Hopkins said.

Gordon Davidson, producing artistic director of the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Theatre, said he was ``very excited'' about the opening, but also raised prevalent questions about the Getty's attempts at an image makeover.

``I've heard criticism that it's an imposing structure on the hill, and it's isolated and all that, and in a sense that may be true,'' he said. ``I know they've made some overtures to making sure they're not just the place on the hill, and they're going to have to make a lot more.''

Quiet about costs

Perhaps to avoid appearances of excess, the Getty is keeping a tight lid on information about the coming-out party's costs.

``They're being so quiet about it,'' said Los Angeles Masterplanner's Morgan. ``They're being very close-mouthed because they just don't want people showing up. But there are also events that will be open to the public. My sense of what's going on at the Getty is that it's going to be every accessible.''

Whatever happens over the next eight weeks, Walden said, it's important that the opening be seen not as an end in itself, but as a prologue to an on-going work in progress.

``It's not like we're going to have everyone in on December 16 and then it all stops. It's important to us that (these) things be happening on an ongoing basis. We're not just interested in loading them up on the first day and saying, `See what we have.' ''

As for Bill Clinton, she added, who knows?

``We would love to have him. I think he'd have a great time.''