Blanche Hecht Consolvo Cariaggi

Blanche Hardy Hecht was born in Norfolk, Virginia, the daughter of Jacob Hecht and Susanne (Sanna) Moritz Hecht. Her parents were Jewish.[1][2] Her mother was born in Germany, as were her paternal grandparents. Her father was a merchant born in New York City, and one of the trustees of the local synagogue.[3]

Hecht was known from youth as a singer and elocutionist.[4][5] She was a debutante in Norfolk in 1899,[6] attended the Boston School of Oratory, and joined in local theatrical productions as a "dainty and extremely pretty" young woman.[7]

During her first marriage, Blanche Consolvo, a contralto, sang in concerts with Frieda Hempel, Rosa Ponselle[8] and May Peterson,[9] and toured in the Southern states.[10][11] She was first president of the Norfolk Opera Company, when it formed in 1914.[12][13][14] She starred in the title role when the company produced Dolly Varden in 1915, as a charity fundraiser.[15] Consolvo sang as a soloist with the Naval Port Band in Norfolk in 1917, at a send-off for American troops during World War I.[16] She pursued further vocal training and experience in Italy in 1920.[17] While in Italy, she met her second husband.[18]

Sheet music for a marching song she composed, "Our Governor Elect" (1905), was dedicated to her close friend, Virginia congressman Claude A. Swanson, when he was running for governor.[19][20][21]

Blanche Hecht eloped to marry widowed Roman Catholic businessman and entrepreneur Charles Herbert Consolvo (1871–1947) in 1902, in North Carolina.[22][23][24] Her son Charles Swanson Consolvo was born in 1904.[25] She divorced Consolvo in Reno in May 1922,[18] and she married widower Augusto M. Cariaggi (1889–1970), an Italian count, in the same month, in New York.[26][27] They had a later wedding in Italy in 1923.[28] When C. H. Consolvo died, she successfully sued his estate for over $22,000.[29] She died in 1961, in Norfolk.