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Actress, singer, arts advocate, socialite, TV personality (and New Orleans native) Kitty Carlisle Hart has died at the age of 96. La Carlisle made her Broadway debut in 1933 in the musical Champagne Sec (a version of Die Fledermaus), then went to Hollywood for a brief stay highlighted by her turn as “Rosa Castaldi” in A Night at the Opera. (To die-hard opera queens, no performance of the “Miserere” from Il trovatore is complete without the interpolation of “the Kitty Carlisle high C.”) In 1948 the mezzo-soprano starred in the New York premiere of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia; later she appeared on the “Straw Hat Circuit” in Carmen and The Merry Widow as well as classic American musicals. On New Year’s Eve 1966, Ms. Hart made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Prince Orlovsky in Fledermaus, a role she reprised for the company’s Parks performances in 1973, and again in 1980 at the New York City Opera for Beverly Sills‘ farewell gala.

A more detailed obituary may be found at broadwayworld.com.

Here’s Kitty Carlisle Hart in a scene from A Night at the Opera, with Allan Jones (and, of course, the Marx Brothers!)

La Cieca has heard from two independent sources who attended today’s dress rehearsal of Il trittico at the Met, and the word they both use to describe the show is “wonderful.” Production values are lavish yet true to the works, the singing is never less than “very fine” and the orchestra under Maestro Levine sounds “superb.” Highest praise went to Maria Guleghina (Giorgietta) and Stephanie Blythe (all three leading mezzo roles, but especially La Zia Principessa). Friday night will likely be a long evening (the rehearsal ran four hours), but the buzz so far is that Il trittico will be “the highlight of the season.”

La Cieca is no big believer in omens, but she must say that within a hour of Aprile Millo‘s final curtain call on the Met stage Saturday night, all hell broke loose over New York. Not exactly “stars with trains of fire and dews of blood/Disasters in the sun” but certainly a messy and unseasonable Nor’easter. Time will tell whether this downpour foretells the end of an era. Meanwhile, La Cieca will do her job and report that among La Millo’s public she glimpsed Elaine Stritch, Rufus Wainwright and Patti Smith, all of whom made the pilgrimage backstage to meet and greet the diva. Also in evidence were Violeta Urmana and Salvatore Licitra, plus of course every opera queen you might care to mention. A few fans attempted to serenade Millo with “Happy Birthday” during her solo bow, but were inaudible over the applause and cheers.

Curiously, the great moment in Millo’s performance wasn’t “La mamma morta,” (which was very good if a little hectic) but rather the phrase “Benedico il destino! Benedico la morte!” just before the final duet. If you need a definition of what Milanov called “vocal message,” that’s what Millo demonstrated in this handful of notes. And need I say she communicated more in those few seconds than many other artists do in a whole season.