Lessee -- spinning out the other direction on cabaret singers: Auden wrote "O Tell Me the Truth About Love" and "Funeral Blues," both set to music by Britten, to be sung by Hedli Anderson, who eventually married Louis MacNeice. Britten, of course, during the War lived in a Brooklyn house shared with Auden and others -- including of all people Carson McCullers (The Heart is a Lonely Hunter). (I somehow feel she ought to have a Mann-wise connection, but I'm not finding one.) Gypsy Rose Lee was also part of that set in the early 40s.

---L.