Hart to Hart - Nov. 21 Celebrating Kitty Carlisle and Moss Hart

On November 21, 2004 at 6:00 pm, The Metropolitan Opera Guild will present "Hart to Hart," a gala celebration of the lives and achievements of Kitty Carlisle and Moss Hart. At 6:00 pm at Avery Fisher Hall, LincolnCenter, this extraordinary concert will feature tributes in song and film clips celebrating their careers, and will be followed by a gala dinner on the Fisher Hall Promenade at 8:30 pm. 

Co-hosts for the evening will be Julie Andrews and Beverly Sills.

Appearances and performances will be by Jane Alexander, Orson Bean, Polly Bergen, Steven Blier, Mario Cuomo, Michael Feinstein, Robert Goulet ,Denyce Graves, Rosemary Harris, Celeste Holm, Audra McDonald, Sylvia McNair, Anna Moffo, Rise Stevens and Kitty Carlisle Hart, plus many more surprise guests.

Moss Hart's extraordinary career will be represented with film clips from his plays, such as You Can't Take It with You and The Man Who Came to Dinner, rare performance footage of Julie Andrews, Richard Burton and Robert Goulet in the two great musicals he directed, My Fair Lady and Camelot and by Ann Sothern from Lady in the Dark, and live performances by Broadway and opera stars of songs from shows he wrote in collaboration with Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin.

Kitty Carlisle's performing career will be celebrated with clips from her films such as A Night at the Opera, as well as from her many years on the TV show "To Tell the Truth." There will also be tributes to her accomplishments during her twenty-year administration as Chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts.

The benefit committee includes The Honorable George E. Pataki, The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton, The Honorable Charles E. Schumer, The Honorable Michael Bloomberg, Julie Andrews, Orson Bean, Polly Bergen, Roger Berlind, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Braddock, Stuart N. Brotman,, Schuyler G. Chapin, Simona and Jerome A. Chazen, Matilda and Mario Cuomo, David Finn, Thomas J. Hubbard, Mrs. Kerryn King, Edward I. Koch, Rocco Landesman, Ellen and James Marcus, Anna Moffo, Robert Nederlander, Tom Poston, Harold Prince, Happy Rockefeller, Mary and Winthrop Rutherfurd, Richard J. Schwartz, the Shubert Organization, Risë Stevens, Steven Spielberg, Mike Wallace and Joanne Woodward.

MOSS HART was the legendary playwright and director whose work dominated Broadway from 1930 until his untimely death in 1961. With George S. Kaufman, Hart wrote a number of Broadway's most successful plays, including Once in a Lifetime (1930), You Can't Take It with You (for which Hart and Kaufman won the Pulitzer Prize in 1936) and The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), all of which were successfully adapted for the screen. He collaborated with Irving Berlin on Face the Music (1932) and As Thousands Cheer (1933) and with Cole Porter on Jubilee (1935). A long-time psychoanalytic patient, in 1941 he brought his analysis onstage with the landmark musical Lady in the Dark, with a score by Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin. His screenwriting credits include Gentlemen's AgreementHans Christian Andersen (1952) and A Star is Born (1954). As a director, he made Broadway history by directing Lerner and Loewe's two smash hits, My Fair Lady (1956) and Camelot (1960). His 1959 autobiography, Act One, was a national best-seller. For decades, Hart and his wife, Kitty Carlisle, were one of the most famous and adored show business couples.

KITTY CARLISLE began her career as an opera singer and star of Broadway musicals and radio shows. On Broadway, she starred in Champagne Sec (a 1933 adaptation of Die Fledermaus), White Horse InnAnniversary Waltz (1954) and the revival of On Your Toes (1983). She made a number of Hollywood films, including Murder at the Vanities (1934) and She Loves Me Not (1934, in which she introduced the song "Love in Bloom" with Bing Crosby). Her most famous film appearance was with the Marx Brothers in the classic comedy, A Night at the Opera. As an opera singer, she appeared on Broadway in the title role in Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia (1948), and at The Metropolitan Opera as Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus (1966 and 1973). She is best remembered by baby boomers for her appearances on numerous game shows, notably "To Tell the Truth," on which she starred from 1957 through 1981, and appeared in later incarnations as late as 2000. She was appointed chairwoman of the New York State Council on the Arts in 1976, and served as a mover and shaker in Albany for twenty years, energetically promoting the arts and arts funding. (She continues to serve as a Council Member.) Her autobiography, Kitty, was published in 1988. (1936), the long-running comedy

Avery Fisher Hall at LincolnCenter
New York
Performance 6:00 pm
Gala Dinner at 8:30 pm

Tickets to the event are priced as follows: Individual tickets are $50 – $2,500.Tables are $10,000-25,000. For more information, please call (212) 769-7062

All sales from this gala benefit the education programs of The Metropolitan Opera Guild, as well as The Metropolitan Opera itself.

Wine is donated by Ruffinio