Justice Samuel Alito and Martha Alito with Italian Ambassador Giovanni Castellaneta and Leila Castellaneta

Location: The Embassy of Italy

WL SPONSORED - Photos by Kyle Samperton 

HIGH NOTES: 300 guests enjoyed the show from their $1,000-a-pop seats at the Kennedy Center Opera House, then shuttled to the Italian Embassy for dinner and dancing, underwritten by Rolex. OPERATIC HOME RUN: Black-tie and bejeweled patrons didn’t finish dinner untill well past midnight, although everyone shared in artistic director Placido Domingo’s exultation over the simulcast screening of La Traviata at Nationals Park before an audience of 15,000. THE CAST: Soprano Elizabeth Futral, director Marta Domingo, Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito, dinner chair Mae Haney Grennan, executive director Mark Weinstein, and a bevy of ambassadors from of Afghanistan, France, Britain, Japan, Spain, Korea, Morocco, Mexico, Finland, Peru, and Brazil. 

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Spring ushers in a fresh crop of real-estate deals.

By Mary K. Mewborn

The 10,600 square-foot colonial at 4815 Dexter St., NW has sold for $3,800,000.

The District With a price tag of $4.5 million, the four-story brick and limestone Beaux-Arts mansion at 2346 S Street, N.W. in Kalorama is now under contract. The prospective buyer is former J. C. Penney’s COO Catherine West, who made Fortune’s 2006 list of the 50 Most Powerful Women before being fired barely six months into the job. Prior to her short stint with Penney’s, West had been with Capital One, First USA Bank, Chevy Chase Bank FSB, and Peoples Express Airline. She received a B.A. from Lynchburg College and is the great-granddaughter and granddaughter of a president and executive vice president of the Chicago retail behemoth Marshall Field & Co. The home on Embassy Row has oversized living and dining rooms, parlor, bar area, state-of-the-art kitchen, breakfast room, mahogany paneled library, six bedrooms, six bathrooms, five fireplaces, enclosed patio and two decks – one with a view of the Washington Monument. The seller is Mark Cohen. The property was listed by Michael Rankin with Tutt, Taylor & Rankin Sotheby’s International Realty. Read the full story