Music: Matzenauer Out

Last week, after 19 years of distinguished service, Contralto Margarete Matzenauer let it be known that she was through at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Opera House. Wanting no floral wreaths, no testimonial speeches, she saved her farewell announcement until after her last performance, gave then as a cause the fact that in recent years she had been allotted only secondary roles.† Unlike Sopranos Frances Alda and Amelita Galli-Curci who have also retired this season from the Metropolitan (TIME, Nov. 25, Jan. 27), Contralto Matzenauer made no valedictory statement on the decadence of opera. Instead she referred to it as an art which “with variations will remain for all time.”

†Most contralto roles are secondary. Contralto Matzenauer was perturbed because the Metropolitan management would not revive for her Samson et Dalila and Le Prophète, two of the few operas with contralto leads.