LA Opera founding board member Tara Glynn Colburn dies at 61
LOS ANGELES – Tara Glynn Colburn, a founding board member of the Los Angeles Opera and one of its major benefactors, has died. She was 61.
Colburn died Friday of cancer in Geneva, Los Angeles Opera officials said.
Born Tarasenka Pankiv in Zagreb, Croatia, she grew up in an artistic family. Her grandfather was director of the Conservatory of Zagreb, and her mother was a concert pianist who began teaching her daughter to play the piano at the age of 5.
She fled Zagreb with her mother after her father was imprisoned and killed by Communists. She studied at Ursuline Convent in Germany. After living in Paris, she moved to Los Angeles and studied gem analysis and design.
She was married and divorced twice. She also made several trips to India to photograph tribal people and staged six exhibitions of her photographs in India and Europe. Her photographic collection has been donated to the University of California, Los Angeles.
Colburn underwrote the recent production of “The Barber of Seville” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and was a co-sponsor of the production of “Madama Butterfly” planned for next season.
She supported the Long Beach Opera and the Salzburg Festival in Austria as a member of the board of the American Friends of Salzburg.
She is survived by her son, Cyril Wohrer.
