Felicia Montealegre Bernstein

Montealegre was born on February 6, 1922 in San José, Costa Rica to Clemencia Montealegre Carazo,[4] and Roy Elwood Cohn,[5] a United States mining executive then stationed in Costa Rica. She had two sisters, Nancy Alessandri and Madeline Lecaros.[6] Educated in Chile, she was raised Catholic, and later converted to Judaism, when marrying Leonard Bernstein (her own paternal grandfather had been Jewish).[7] In 1944, Montealegre established herself in New York, where she took piano lessons from her Chilean compatriot Claudio Arrau.[8]

Beginning in 1949, Montealegre starred in leading roles on weekly television anthology dramas for Kraft Television Theatre (NBC), Studio One (CBS), Suspense (CBS), The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre (NBC) and The Philco Television Playhouse (NBC), among others.

Montealegre made her television debut on NBC's Kraft Television Theatre on May 11, 1949 as Hygieia in Mary Violet Heberden's "The Oath of Hippocrates" alongside actors Dean Harens and Guy Spaull. In 1950, she appeared in the leading role of Nora Helmer in dramatization of Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll's House," with John Newland as Krogstad and Theodore Newton as Thorvald.

Montealegre made her first appearance on The CBS Television Network's Studio One in the psychological thriller "Flowers from a Stranger" (aired May 25, 1949), with actor Yul Brynner. She acted in eleven Studio One teleplays between 1949 and 1956, including "Of Human Bondage" (aired November 21, 1949), based on Somerset Maugham's novel in which Montealegre played Mildred opposite Charlton Heston as Philip Carey.[9] In 1952, she co-starred alongside Heston again in "The Wings of the Dove," based on the 1902 eponymous novel by Henry James.

Montealegre appeared in four episodes of the Suspense series (1949-1954), live teleplays featuring people in dangerous situations. In an episode entitled "The Yellow Scarf" (air date June 7, 1949), she played a housekeeper Hettie, who finds herself in a strange scenario involving her mysterious employer Mr. Bronson, portrayed by Boris Karloff, and a social mission worker, Tom Weatherby, played by Douglass Watson.

In 1957, Montealegre performed her first dramatic role in a classical music concert as the narrator in Lukas Foss’s Parable of Death, based on the mystical poem by Rilke, for a concert of the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music.[10]

She performed the title role of Joan in Honegger’s Joan of Arc at the Stake (Fr: Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher) several times, including in 1958 with her husband Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic and Leontyne Price in the role of Margaret.[11]

Bernstein wrote the narration for his Symphony No. 3: Kaddish with Montealegre in mind, and she narrated its first American performance with soprano Jennie Tourel and Charles Munch conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra on January 31, 1964.[12]