Florence Foster Jenkins

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Florence Foster Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins (* 19th July 1868 in Wilkes-Barre , Pennsylvania ; † 26. November 1944 in New York ) was an American philanthropist and amateur - singer ( soprano ). As the “diva of wrong notes” and “queen of dissonances ”, she was often ridiculed for her vocal performances, as she could not match the tone or rhythm of the selected compositions.

Life

Florence Foster was the daughter of Mary Jane (1851–1930) and Charles Dorrance Foster (1836–1909), a wealthy lawyer and banker. Florence took piano lessons as a child and performed as a child prodigy in Pennsylvania at so-called "song festivals" and at the White House during President Rutherford B. Hayes' tenure . Her father did not want to finance her desire to study singing.

In 1885 she married the doctor Frank Thornton Jenkins. Soon after, she was infected with syphilis by her husband . Due to the mercury and arsenic treatments for the disease that were common at the time , she lost her hair and had to wear wigs for the rest of her life. It is likely that the disease and / or the treatment methods have permanently damaged your hearing and central nervous system . In 1902 the couple separated. Jenkins made a modest living as a piano teacher. In 1909 she met the English Shakespeare actor St. Clair Bayfield. They entered into a relationship that lasted the rest of their lives. He later became her manager. Her father died that same year, leaving her so much money that she could concentrate fully on her singing career, which her parents had advised against. She began to participate in the musical life in Philadelphia, founded and financed the Verdi Club, took singing lessons and gave her first concert in 1912 at the age of 44.

Her reputation as a bad singer soon spread, first in Philadelphia and then across the country, and her concerts became a weird tip for insiders. Though audiences demanded more appearances, Jenkins limited herself to infrequent appearances in front of a select audience of her own choosing, such as at her annual concerts at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City. On October 25, 1944, she finally gave in to public pressure and, at the age of 76, sang a concert in Carnegie Hall that had sold out weeks before and whose tickets cost large sums on the black market.

A month later she died of a heart attack. Friends suspected she had died of grief over the scathing reviews.

art

Foster Jenkins' recordings show that she failed to keep intonation and rhythm . She had a fairly small vocal range and had difficulty keeping notes long. The piano accompanist constantly had to take into account their tempo fluctuations and rhythmic errors. In addition to her singing, her extravagant presentation was striking, which she often changed during a concert, depending on which role she sang. She was loved by the audience, also because one could have fun in her concerts. Some critics say it served music by making people curious about classical concerts.

She herself had an unshakable self-confidence and compared herself to great singers of her time, such as Frieda Hempel or Luisa Tetrazzini . Laughter, which often came from the audience at her concerts, was perceived as the spitefulness of her jealous competitors. She responded to criticism with the words:

"People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing."

"People may say I can't sing, but no one can say that I didn't sing."

- Florence Foster Jenkins

The choice of music for the singer's concerts consisted of the standards of the opera repertoire ( Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Strauss ), songs (for example by Johannes Brahms ) and works composed by herself or her companion Cosmé McMoon. She also sang arias particularly difficult - especially known its interpretation was the aria of the Queen of the Night The vengeance of Hell boils in my heart from the Magic Flute by Mozart .

Discography

  • The Glory (????) Of The Human Voice. RCA Victor Gold Seal, 1992, OCLC 775026551 (CD edition no.GD 61175; RCA 09026-61175-2)
  • Hell's Revenge. Membran Music, Hamburg 2004, OCLC 60247828 (1 CD; 28 min.)
  • Murder on the High Cs. Naxos Jazz, Berlin 2003, OCLC 53907348 (1 CD; 61 min.)
  • The Muse Surmounted - Florence Foster Jenkins and eleven of her rivals. Homophone 2004, OCLC 58399998 (1 CD; 78:24 min.)

Works on Foster Jenkins

The best known is Stephen Temperley's Souvenir , which had a huge hit on Broadway in New York City in 2005 . It re-introduced Foster Jenkins and has since been translated into several languages. Other pieces are Glorious! by Peter Quilter, which also premiered in London in 2005, and Viva La Diva by Chris Ballance from 2001. The one-person piece Goddess of Song by Charles J. Fourie was released in South Africa in 1999 .

Several bands have dedicated songs to Florence Foster Jenkins.

In 2015, Foster Jenkin's life served as the inspiration for Xavier Giannoli's film Madame Marguerite or the art of crooked tones (original title: Marguerite ). Giannoli moved the plot to Paris in the 1920s and cast the title role with the French actress Catherine Frot .

Another biographical feature film entitled Florence Foster Jenkins was made in London in May 2015. Here led Stephen Frears directed; Florence Foster Jenkins was portrayed by Meryl Streep . The German theatrical release was November 24, 2016.

The German production Die Florence Foster Jenkins Story (director: Ralf Pfleger, theatrical release: November 10, 2016) also deals with the phenomenon of the “worst soprano” as a montage of play scenes and expert interviews. In the film, the discrepancy between illusory self-perception and the ridiculed reality is portrayed by the US opera singer Joyce DiDonato .

literature

  • Darryl W. Bullock: Florence! Foster !! Jenkins !!! The Life of the World's Worst Opera Singer. Duckworth / The Overlook Press, London 2016, ISBN 978-0-7156-5106-3 ( preview in Google Book Search).
  • Nicholas Martin, Jasper Rees: Florence Foster Jenkins. The true story of the most famous and at the same time most untalented singer of all time (= Goldmann. No. 15919). Goldmann, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-442-15919-2 , urn : nbn: de: 101: 1-2016112015283 .

Web links

Commons : Florence Foster Jenkins  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Florence Foster Jenkins Story. ( Memento from January 5, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) In: arte.tv, accessed on January 3, 2018 (description of the film by Ralf Pfleger).
  2. ↑ Anb.org: Florence Foster Jenkins. In: American National Biography , accessed January 3, 2018, doi: 10.1093 / anb / 9780198606697.article.1803857 .
  3. ↑ a b Florence Foster Jenkins: A World of Her Own. Edited by Gregor Benko. With Donald Collup a. a. Video Artists International, Pleasantville, N.Y. 2007, OCLC 995524187 (DVD; 89 min.).
  4. ↑ William Addams Reitwiesner: Ancestry of Florence Foster Jenkins ( Memento of 30 April 2017 Internet Archive ). In: wargs.com, accessed January 3, 2017.
  5. ↑ a b c Nathan Salsburg: The Worst Singer in the World. In: psmag.com. July 1, 2014, accessed January 3, 2018.
  6. ↑ a b c d e Marc von Lüpke: Florence Foster Jenkins. The worst singer in the world. In: Spiegel Online January 19, 2015, accessed January 3, 2018.
  7. ↑ Telegraph Film: 'She never knew how terrible she really was' - the true story of Florence Foster Jenkins. In: telegraph.co.uk. April 13, 2016, accessed on January 31, 2018 (beginning of article freely available).
  8. ↑ Brooks Peters: Florence, The Nightingale? In: Opera News . Vol. 65, 2001, No. 12, ISSN  0030-3607 , pp. 20-23 ( metoperafamily.org ( memento of March 16, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on January 4, 2018).
  9. ^ Remembering Florence Foster Jenkins ( Memento from May 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). In: carnegiehall.org. November 26, 2012, accessed January 3, 2018.
  10. ^ Peter Debruge: Venice Film Review: 'Marguerite'. In: variety.com. September 4, 2015, accessed September 4, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Foster Jenkins, Florence
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American patroness and amateur singer
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1868
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilkes-Barre , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 1944
Place of death new York