Autograph hunter leaves fortune to opera singers
OperaEveryone knew Lois Kirschenbaum at the stage door of the Met. She was the biggest fan and most assiduous autograph collector for 50 years.
Renée Fleming, Marilyn Horne and James Levine attended her 75th birthday party.
Lois, a former switchboard operator who died in March 2021 aged 88, left $215,000 to the George and Nora London Foundation for Singers, it was announced last night.
What a heartwarming story, she gave back to what she loved the most.
She wasn’t some well-off subscriber either, she went “usually from a seat in the uppermost balcony secured for little or no money by canvassing operagoers at the entrance just before the opening curtain” (NYT)
It was out of pure, mutual, love of opera.
A wonderful gesture. Brava to her.
Hats off to my amazing friend Lois, with whom I attended many events almost sixty years ago! ( ok, 55! )
Who’s the singer w/ Lois in the pic?
Looks like Jon Vickers.
Make him shorter and put a monocle in his eye and it could be Richard Tauber!
I thought it was Orson Welles, but then I realized he didn’t sing opera!! Only his own praises.
It is. His brother Ab was an United Church Minister in Toronto & he chaired a music festival
When a passion illuminates a life and a personality….. didn’t know her but wish I did and could her talking…
Sign of a selfless true love.