Opera superfan’s estate donates $215,000 to foundation for singers

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NEW YORK (AP) — The estate of Lois Kirschenbaum, an opera fanatic known for collecting autographs backstage at the Metropolitan Opera for more than a half-century, has donated $215,000 to the George and Nora London Foundation for Singers.

“Lois’s love and dedication to opera and its artists was absolute,” foundation president John Hauser said in a statement on Monday. “She was a real friend to the foundation, and whenever she was in the audience, we were the center of the New York opera world.”

Kirschenbaum died on March 27, 2021, at age 88.

Known for her thick glasses and Brooklyn accent, Kirschenbaum was legally blind since birth but attended performances with large binoculars, often getting in with extra tickets people gave her outside the houses or being allowed entry by employees.

She was a fixture in the dressing rooms and and at the stage doors of the Met, New York State Theater and Carnegie Hall, bringing programs, photographs and recordings to be signed.

Kirschenbaum became so friendly with singers that Renée Fleming, Marilyn Horne and Met music director James Levine attended her 75th birthday party in 2007.

Kirschenbaum was a switchboard operator for the International Rescue Committee, the international humanitarian aid group, until her retirement in 2004.

Hauser said a George London Award will be given in Kirschenbaum’s memory at the 52nd George and Nora London Foundation Competition at the Morgan Library & Museum on Feb. 16. George London was a bass-baritone and later a director who died in 1985.

Monday was the 100th anniversary of Nora London’s birth.