Florence Foster Jenkins
Encyclopedia
Florence Foster Jenkins was an American amateur operatic soprano
who was known, and ridiculed, for her lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability.
, to Charles Dorrance Foster and Mary Jane Hoagland, Jenkins received music lessons as a child, and expressed a desire to go abroad to study opera. Her wealthy father refused to pay the bill, so she eloped to Philadelphia with Frank Thornton Jenkins, a physician. The two were married from 1885 until 1902. After her divorce Jenkins earned a living in Philadelphia as a teacher and pianist. In 1908 she began living with the stage actor St. Clair Bayfield
(later her manager), a relationship that would last the rest of her life.
When her father died in 1909 Jenkins inherited sufficient funds to begin her long-delayed singing career. She took voice lessons and became involved in the musical social circles of Philadelphia and, later, New York City, where she founded and funded the Verdi Club. She began giving recitals in 1912. Her mother's death in 1928 gave her additional resources to pursue her singing career.
Despite her patent lack of ability, Jenkins apparently was firmly convinced of her greatness. She compared herself favorably to the renowned sopranos Frieda Hempel
and Luisa Tetrazzini
, and dismissed the abundant audience laughter during her performances as "professional jealousy." She was aware of her critics, but never let them stand in her way: "People may say I can't sing," she said, "but no one can ever say I didn't sing."
Her recitals featured a mixture of the standard operatic repertoire by Mozart
, Verdi
, and Johann Strauss
(all well beyond her technical ability); lied
er by Brahms
; Valverde
's "Clavelitos" ("Little Carnations"), a favorite encore; and songs composed by herself or accompanist Cosmé McMoon, who reportedly made faces at Jenkins behind her back to get laughs.
Jenkins often wore elaborate costumes that she designed herself, sometimes appearing in wings and tinsel, and, for "Clavelitos", throwing flowers into the audience from a basket (apparently on one occasion, she hurled the basket as well) while fluttering a fan and sporting more flowers in her hair. After each performance McMoon would collect the flowers from the auditorium in readiness for redistribution during the next show.
After a taxicab crash in 1943 she discovered that she could sing "a higher F than ever before", and sent the cab driver a box of expensive cigars.
In spite of public demand, Jenkins restricted her rare performances to a few favorite venues and one annual recital at the Ritz-Carlton ballroom in New York City. Attendance was limited to her loyal clubwomen and a select few others; she handled distribution of the coveted tickets herself. At the age of 76 she finally yielded to public demand and performed at Carnegie Hall
on October 25, 1944. Tickets for the event sold out weeks in advance. Jenkins died a month later at her residence, the Hotel Seymour in Manhattan.
s:
as the "The World's Worst Opera Singer" and chronicles her "successes". He noted that she gained the sobriquet of "La Jenkins" within her lifetime.
In 1999 a one-woman play about Jenkins, Goddess of Song by South African playwright Charles J. Fourie
, was staged at the Coffee Lounge in Cape Town. In 2001 Viva La Diva by Chris Ballance
had a run at the Edinburgh Fringe. Another play based on Jenkins's life, Souvenir
by Stephen Temperley, opened on Broadway
in November 2005 starring Judy Kaye
. Kaye commented that "It's hard work to sing badly well. You could sing badly badly for a while, but you'll hurt yourself if you do it for long." A fourth play about Jenkins, Glorious! by Peter Quilter
, opened the same year in England starring Maureen Lipman
. It has since been translated and performed in more than 20 countries.
The self-titled 2009 album of Boston-based indie folk
band The Everyday Visuals
contains a cut entitled "Florence Foster Jenkins" which references her Carnegie Hall performance and other aspects of her life. A hidden track called "Encore for Florence" concludes folk singer Mary Hampton
's debut album My Mother's Children.
Jenkins was the subject of the "Not My Job" segment of NPR
's radio program Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! on October 25, 2009. Anchorman Brian Williams
, the show's special guest, was asked a series of trivia questions about Jenkins, whom he nicknamed "Flo Fo". The broadcast appropriately took place in Carnegie Hall.
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
who was known, and ridiculed, for her lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability.
Early years
Born Narcissa Florence Foster in Wilkes-Barre, PennsylvaniaWilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Wilkes-Barre is a city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania, the county seat of Luzerne County. It is at the center of the Wyoming Valley area and is one of the principal cities in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, which had a population of 563,631 as of the 2010 Census...
, to Charles Dorrance Foster and Mary Jane Hoagland, Jenkins received music lessons as a child, and expressed a desire to go abroad to study opera. Her wealthy father refused to pay the bill, so she eloped to Philadelphia with Frank Thornton Jenkins, a physician. The two were married from 1885 until 1902. After her divorce Jenkins earned a living in Philadelphia as a teacher and pianist. In 1908 she began living with the stage actor St. Clair Bayfield
St. Clair Bayfield
St. Clair Bayfield, American stage actor, was born John St. Clair Roberts on August 2, 1875 in Cheltenham, England, and died May 19, 1967.-Career:Bayfield spent his youth in New Zealand on sheep and cattle ranches. He also served as a sailor and soldier...
(later her manager), a relationship that would last the rest of her life.
When her father died in 1909 Jenkins inherited sufficient funds to begin her long-delayed singing career. She took voice lessons and became involved in the musical social circles of Philadelphia and, later, New York City, where she founded and funded the Verdi Club. She began giving recitals in 1912. Her mother's death in 1928 gave her additional resources to pursue her singing career.
Career
From her recordings it is apparent that Jenkins had little sense of pitch and rhythm, and was barely capable of sustaining a note. Her accompanist can be heard making adjustments to compensate for her tempo variations and rhythmic mistakes. Her dubious diction, especially in foreign language songs, is also noteworthy. Nonetheless, she became popular for the amusement she provided. Critics often described her work in a backhanded way that may have served to pique public curiosity.Despite her patent lack of ability, Jenkins apparently was firmly convinced of her greatness. She compared herself favorably to the renowned sopranos Frieda Hempel
Frieda Hempel
Frieda Hempel was a German soprano singer in operatic and concert work who had an international career in Europe and the United States.-Biography:...
and Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini
Luisa Tetrazzini was an Italian coloratura soprano of great international fame.Tetrazzini's voice was remarkable for its phenomenal flexibility, thrust, steadiness and thrilling tone...
, and dismissed the abundant audience laughter during her performances as "professional jealousy." She was aware of her critics, but never let them stand in her way: "People may say I can't sing," she said, "but no one can ever say I didn't sing."
Her recitals featured a mixture of the standard operatic repertoire by Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
, and Johann Strauss
Johann Strauss II
Johann Strauss II , also known as Johann Baptist Strauss or Johann Strauss, Jr., the Younger, or the Son , was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas...
(all well beyond her technical ability); lied
Lied
is a German word literally meaning "song", usually used to describe romantic songs setting German poems of reasonably high literary aspirations, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf...
er by Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
; Valverde
Joaquín Valverde Sanjuán
Joaquín "Quinito" Valverde Sanjuán was a Spanish composer of zarzuelas. He was the son of Joaquín Valverde Durán, also a zarzuela composer, and was usually called Quinito Valverde to distinguish him from his father...
's "Clavelitos" ("Little Carnations"), a favorite encore; and songs composed by herself or accompanist Cosmé McMoon, who reportedly made faces at Jenkins behind her back to get laughs.
Jenkins often wore elaborate costumes that she designed herself, sometimes appearing in wings and tinsel, and, for "Clavelitos", throwing flowers into the audience from a basket (apparently on one occasion, she hurled the basket as well) while fluttering a fan and sporting more flowers in her hair. After each performance McMoon would collect the flowers from the auditorium in readiness for redistribution during the next show.
After a taxicab crash in 1943 she discovered that she could sing "a higher F than ever before", and sent the cab driver a box of expensive cigars.
In spite of public demand, Jenkins restricted her rare performances to a few favorite venues and one annual recital at the Ritz-Carlton ballroom in New York City. Attendance was limited to her loyal clubwomen and a select few others; she handled distribution of the coveted tickets herself. At the age of 76 she finally yielded to public demand and performed at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
on October 25, 1944. Tickets for the event sold out weeks in advance. Jenkins died a month later at her residence, the Hotel Seymour in Manhattan.
Recordings
Only one professional audio recording of Jenkins exists: nine arias composed by her accompanist, Cosmé McMoon, on five 78-rpm records. The material has been reissued in various combinations on three CDCompact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
s:
- The Muse Surmounted: Florence Foster Jenkins and Eleven of Her Rivals (Homophone Records) contains only one of the arias, Valse Caressante, but includes an interview with McMoon.
- The Glory (????) of the Human Voice (RCA Victor) includes eight of the arias and features Jenkins on the cover in one of her many recital costumes, "Angel of Inspiration".
- Murder on the High C's (Naxos RecordsNaxos RecordsNaxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...
) contains all nine arias, but lacks the McMoon interview.
In popular culture
Stephen Pile names Jenkins in his 1979 Book of Heroic FailuresThe Book of Heroic Failures
The Book of Heroic Failures, written by Stephen Pile in 1979, is a book written in celebration of human inadequacy in all its forms. Entries include William McGonagall, a notoriously bad poet, and Teruo Nakamura, a soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army who fought for Japan in World War II until...
as the "The World's Worst Opera Singer" and chronicles her "successes". He noted that she gained the sobriquet of "La Jenkins" within her lifetime.
In 1999 a one-woman play about Jenkins, Goddess of Song by South African playwright Charles J. Fourie
Charles J. Fourie
Born in 1965 in South Africa Charles J. Fourie is an acclaimed South African playwright and director. Fourie staged his first play as drama-student at the Windybrow Theatre in 1985, and went on to receive the Henk Wybenga bursary as most promising student in the same year.Since, he has written more...
, was staged at the Coffee Lounge in Cape Town. In 2001 Viva La Diva by Chris Ballance
Chris Ballance
Chris Ballance is a playwright and Scottish Green Party politician, a former Member of the Scottish Parliament for the South of Scotland region.-Biography:...
had a run at the Edinburgh Fringe. Another play based on Jenkins's life, Souvenir
Souvenir (play)
Souvenir is a two-character play, with incidental music, by Stephen Temperley.Set in a Greenwich Village supper club in 1964, it flashes back to the musical career of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy socialite with a famously uncertain sense of pitch and key. In 1932, she met mediocre pianist...
by Stephen Temperley, opened on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in November 2005 starring Judy Kaye
Judy Kaye
Judy Kaye is an American singer and actress. She has appeared in stage musicals, plays, and operas. Kaye has been in long runs on Broadway in the musicals The Phantom of the Opera, Ragtime and Mamma Mia!-Biography:...
. Kaye commented that "It's hard work to sing badly well. You could sing badly badly for a while, but you'll hurt yourself if you do it for long." A fourth play about Jenkins, Glorious! by Peter Quilter
Peter Quilter
Peter Quilter is a playwright whose plays have been translated into 20 languages and performed in 33 countries. His shows have been performed in cities across six continents, including London, Cape Town, Rome, Prague, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, Chicago, Madrid, Sydney and New...
, opened the same year in England starring Maureen Lipman
Maureen Lipman
Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...
. It has since been translated and performed in more than 20 countries.
The self-titled 2009 album of Boston-based indie folk
Indie folk
Indie folk is a music genre that arose in the 1990s from singer/songwriters in the indie rock community showing heavy influences from folk music scenes of the 50s, 60s and early 70s, country music, and indie rock. A few early artists included Lou Barlow, Beck, Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith...
band The Everyday Visuals
The Everyday Visuals
The Everyday Visuals is an alternative indie rock band located in Boston, Massachusetts.- History :The first incarnation of the band began in 1996 under the name Pawn Unction in greater Manchester, New Hampshire...
contains a cut entitled "Florence Foster Jenkins" which references her Carnegie Hall performance and other aspects of her life. A hidden track called "Encore for Florence" concludes folk singer Mary Hampton
Mary Hampton
Mary Hampton is a folk singer, songwriter and guitarist from Brighton, England.Hampton has released two self-produced CD-Rs, Book One and Book Two , containing a mix of original and traditional songs. In 2008 she released My Mother's Children, her first commercially available album, on Navigator...
's debut album My Mother's Children.
Jenkins was the subject of the "Not My Job" segment of NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's radio program Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! on October 25, 2009. Anchorman Brian Williams
Brian Williams
Brian Douglas Williams is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network, a position he assumed in 2004...
, the show's special guest, was asked a series of trivia questions about Jenkins, whom he nicknamed "Flo Fo". The broadcast appropriately took place in Carnegie Hall.
External links
- Florence Foster Jenkins ephemera, a scrapbook kept for Jenkins and her husband, Bayfield, in the Music Division of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
- Liner-notes from the RCA CD, photos, and an article on Jenkins by Daniel Dixon
- "Playing the diva of din", The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Interview with Mr. Cosmé McMoon about Jenkins, 26 May 1991
- "Tra-la-laughable, but loving it" about the play Glorious!, The Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning HeraldThe Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
(October 4, 2007) - 5 People Who Failed Their Way to Fame And Fortune – #2. Florence Foster Jenkins