But in spite of the cries of several hundred admirers, Madame Otto
Goldschmidt and her husband refused to appear on the balcony.
At the dock when her ship left two thousand people gathered to make a
noise, in contrast to the thirty thousand who had shoved their way to
greet her. The _Herald_ on the morning of her departure gave her this
parting thrust: “She has been principally engaged in singing pieces
of operas and catches of all kinds, which were considerably more
of the clap-trap style than in accordance with the rigid rules of
classical music. When she returns to London and makes her reappearance
in opera, she will have to prune away a great deal of her _ad libitum_
redundancies in which she indulged during her career in this land.”
This was the same woman whose song seemed to the _Herald_ of a little
more than a year before to be “melting into the song of the seraphim”
until it was “lost in eternity.”
After her return to England, where she and her husband settled
eventually, Jenny Lind was rarely heard in public. She and Otto
Goldschmidt lived at Malvern Hills, where near by there are the three
things she admired most, “trees, water, and a cathedral.” She gave a
few oratorio concerts in England and several concerts for charity on
the Continent, but after her marriage her retirement was practically
complete. It is significant of her character that without a pang of
regret she could still her voice as soon as she changed her name from
Jenny Lind to Madame Otto Goldschmidt. After 1863 she was seldom heard
in public, even for charity, although she was only forty-three years
old. Her last appearance took place in 1883, and in 1887 she died at
Malvern Hills, England, after suffering from complete paralysis for
five weeks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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