Well-known local personality Michael Maxwell Steer has a hidden secret. One of his forebears was a famous opera singer who married an earl. Kitty Stephens, whom William Hazlitt called ‘the sweetest voice on the Regency stage’. Kitty was the doyenne of Covent Garden between 1818- 1830, both as a singer, an actress, and a singing-actress; that is to say she could take on a wide range of roles, from works by Handel to Gay’s Beggars Opera, as well as straight acting roles opposite Charles...