To paraphrase the great Lorenz Hart lyric, that's just what Viktoria Vizin -- who will perform her 36th Carmen when the Pittsburgh Opera curtain goes up in Benedum Center on Saturday -- is doing in her scarce spare moments. Moreover, her book will be written in English, which the svelte Hungarian-born mezzo-soprano speaks fluently with only a trace of a foreign accent.

Born in Hungary in 1973, Vizin was 17 when the communist system broke up. "I'm very Hungarian," she says. "I have very strong roots. I was very affected by the change. I am writing about myself, so that through my story I can show young starters how to come through political crises.

"When I was growing up, the walls had ears, like [in Orwell's novel] '1984.' The communist authorities would ask, 'Do you want to join us?' and if you misunderstood and thought you had a choice, you were out for all of your life. You had to say yes. Still, my childhood was very happy because they took care of children, sent us to camp every summer [to indoctrinate us], but it was deceptive. We sang their marching songs and were happy because we were blind. "I was always a free person. My father was a professional soldier, while my mother was a believing Catholic. I went to church even when you weren't allowed to, and I knew that spies were around." She went to a special music school in Hungary, studying piano for 17 years -- "but I never wanted to be a pianist," she says. "From the age of 4, I wanted to be an actress, and when I discovered I could sing, I stopped the piano without telling my parents and started voice studies."

By the end of 1996, she had made her stage debut in Romania as Rosina in Rossini's "Barber of Seville." And in 2002, she got her green card to perform in the United States, where she met her husband, a Mexican-American engineer working in Chicago -- now home to the couple and their 2-year-old daughter, aptly named Carmen.

We were speaking in the Pittsburgh Opera building on Penn Avenue, while -- between stage rehearsals -- the singer was in makeup, becoming even more glamorous with every stroke. "This time of my life is a high point," she says, "because I'm doing Carmen in many places. That's what every mezzo wants."

Indeed, Vizin will be doing many more Carmens in the future. Lyric Opera of Chicago recently engaged her to cover established stars Olga Borodina and Denyse Graves in the role in 2005-06 and to sing three performances of her own later in the run. The following season she will take on the very different character of Dorabella in Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte."

The Metropolitan Opera may not be far behind, although she is realistic (and modest enough) to say that she doesn't expect to be singing Carmen there right away. Met administrator Jonathan Friend came to hear her Chicago audition -- which she performed three weeks after giving birth -- and has invited her to re-audition on the Met's main stage.

Speaking of her eponymous gypsy character, Vizin says, "There's only one kind of Carmen that doesn't exist, and that's the nice one.

"There are two basic Carmen types," she continues: "slut or bitch. I'm the bitch. As a person I never want to be bitchy, but Carmen is bitchy. She's not educated but she's very witty. [As Carmen] I don't listen to anybody or anything except my instincts. That's what makes me dead in the end."

Her favorite moment is Carmen's Card Aria, the opera's darkest moment, although she also enjoys Carmen's lighter moments, especially the dancing. She learned flamenco dancing for a production in Dusseldorf, and learned the opera's original version with spoken dialogue (which will be used in Pittsburgh) for performances in Essen. Unexpectedly, she says, the hardest moment for her is Carmen's entrance aria, the Habanera: "It has to be as if nothing. To build up a simple moment like that on stage is most difficult because it is unlike life. Most of life is dramatic, passionate."

She quotes her first voice teacher, Valeria Berdal, who had been the teacher of Hungarian soprano Ilona Tokody and was 70 by the time Vizin came to her studio: "Forget about technique," she told me. "Feel the character and it will all come out right."

Vizin also expresses admiration for American mezzo Marilyn Horne. "She has the same point of view in singing that I do. I wouldn't mind to take lessons from her. I know she is a very tough teacher, but she gets results."

Vizin believes that "good singing is technique, but good entertainment is singing well, moving well, acting well, filling the whole atmosphere well, communicating with the audience well."

One thing she hopes for in her future is a film career. "I want very much to do Hollywood, because it is close up, totally the opposite of the stage. With 3,000 to 4,000 people in the audience, you have to have always a strong face, big gestures. And then, of course, I hear that when you do Hollywood, you become rich."