Exit Crying

5 March 1951 (LIFE?)
Lotte Lehmann Ends 41 Years of Singing

Thou lofty art, in how many gray hours
When I was caught in life’s wild toils,
You have lit a light of tender love in my heart
And transported me to a better world...
Thou lofty art, I thank you for it.
Thou noble art I thank you!

Lotte Lehmann had sung these words of Schubert’s immortal song “To Music” (An die Musik) hundreds of times before, but this time was different. As the statuesque soprano came to the final lines her eyes began to fill with tears. She broke down with a sob and covered her face with her hands. The piano finished alone.

Thus with her own tears and with the tears of her audience, Mme. Lehmann, at 63, ended her 41-year singing career. Stepping forward to the footlights at intermission time at her New York Town Hall recital, Mme. Lehmann, one of the greatest operatic sopranos and by far the finest Lieder singer of her time, had startled her huge audience with an unexpected announcement: “This is my farewell recital...” (“No! no!” the audience cried.) “I had hoped you would protest, but please don’t argue with me. After 41 years of anxiety, nerves, strain and hard work, I think I deserve to take it easy.” Then, citing her most famous operatic role, the aging Marschallin who at last gives up her young lover in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, she said, “The Marschallin looks into her mirror and says, ‘It is time.’...I look into my mirror and say, ‘It is time.’”

Backstage after the concert Mme. Lehmann was kissed, hugged and wept on by more than a thousand of her admirerers who then poured out into the street to cheer her as her automobile drove away. “It is good” she said smiling again, “that I do not wait for the people to say, ‘My god, when will that Lotte Lehmann shut up!’”