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Topic: Florence Foster Jenkins

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	Florence Foster Jenkins - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Born Florence Foster in 1868 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Jenkins received music lessons as a child, and expressed a desire to go abroad to study music.
		From her recordings, it is apparent that Jenkins had little sense of pitch and rhythm and was barely capable of sustaining a note.
		Jenkins often wore elaborate costumes that she designed herself, sometimes appearing in wings and tinsel, and, for "Clavelitos", throwing flowers into the audience while fluttering a fan and sporting more flowers in her hair.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Florence_Foster_Jenkins (895 words)

	Florence Foster Jenkins Queen of the Night Aria (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Florence Foster Jenkins Queen of the Night Aria
		Florence Foster Jenkins - Queen of the Night Aria
		Unfortunately, the past several days (Feburary 2004) my bandwidth has jumped 6 times normal because of Florence Foster Jenkins.
	www.brumm.com /realaudio/alternative/jenkinsnotes.htm (48 words)

	Florence Foster Jenkins
		One of those was Madame Florence Foster Jenkins, born around 1868, so when these recordings were made about 1940 she must have been well into her sixth decade.
		Reports say when she appeared on the stage (which also contained a number of palm trees in addition to the piano) there would be applause—and laughter— and when all this died down she would begin singing only to have audience sounds again cover up her efforts.
		Jenkins made a series of recordings at the New York Melotone Recording Studios at 25 Central Park West, with the intention of selling them to her friends and admirers.
	www.classicalcdreview.com /ffj.html (779 words)

	Madame who hit the big time with her wobbly squalling - theage.com.au
		Madame Jenkins, as she became known, was born Florence Foster, in Pennsylvania, in 1868.
		Jenkins was devoted to music, and now she was able to realise her dream.
		Jenkins was invited to commit her disrhythmic warbling to record, and approached the task with typical assurance.
	www.theage.com.au /articles/2002/08/25/1030053009218.html (684 words)

	'Souvenir' is off-key, off-kilter, and laugh-out-loud funny - The Boston Globe
		Florence Foster Jenkins had the kind of voice of which legends are made.
		Jenkins was aided and abetted in her life by the bizarrely named accompanist Cosme McMoon, who apparently never let her in on the joke.
		McMoon blows up at Jenkins once, calling her a silly woman, but the pain of her reaction and the tenderness of his retraction are, in the end, as affecting as all the laughs that come before and after.
	www.boston.com /ae/theater_arts/articles/2005/08/24/souvenir_is_off_key_off_kilter_and_laugh_out_loud_funny?mode=PF (777 words)

	Souvenir - Review - Theater - New York Times (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Jenkins, a socialite who set elite eardrums in Manhattan a-trembling in a series of notorious private concerts from 1912 until the year she died.
		Jenkins, who died in her mid-70's a month after making her Carnegie Hall debut to a sold-out house, exists in the footnotes of cultural history as a perfectly self-contained walking joke, rather like the "American Idol" reject William Hung.
		Jenkins was a monomaniac, which means that she is essentially a one-note character, however many musical notes she may mangle.
	theater2.nytimes.com /2005/11/11/theater/reviews/11souv.html?ex=1289365200&en=514f5f67bae9c06d&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss (1012 words)

	Why do they do it?
		Aside from common vanity, the only available explanation for such phenomena is the Florence Foster Jenkins Syndrome, a condition whose enduring fascination has given rise to one play that will reach the West End next month and another that is heading for Broadway in November.
		Florence Foster Jenkins is empirically the worst singer that ever drew breath - if, that is, one can dignify what she did as singing or admit that the excruciating sounds she emitted involved the exhalation of God's pure air.
		The Jenkins recital became a social perennial, graduating to the lesser halls of New York as her celebrity gathered pace.
	www.scena.org /columns/lebrecht/050831-NL-demodiscs.html (857 words)

	Glorious! London theatre tickets and information
		Florence Foster Jenkins became known as 'the first lady of the sliding scale' - she warbled and screeched her way through concerts to an audience who mostly fell about with laughter.
		But this delusional and joyously happy woman paid little attention to her critics, instead Florence was surrounded by a circle of devoted friends who were almost as eccentric as she was.
		Maureen Lipman on playing Florence Foster Jenkins: "I try not to send her up, I try to tread a fine line, allowing the voice to slide all over the place, but doing it as someone who heard the music right in her head.
	www.thisistheatre.com /londonshows/glorious.html (475 words)

	'Souvenir' at the Lyceum - A Review
		Florence Foster Jenkins succeeded (if that's the right word) because she was bad.
		Florence was a wealthy society widow who regaled New York society in the 1930s and 40s with private benefit recitals in which she savaged the soprano repertoire of the great operatic composers.
		Her recreation of Jenkin's off key bleat is uncanny (recordings survive that document Jenkin's peculiar appeal for the morbidly curious) and one can only marvel at the ability of a truly gifted singer to sing so badly.
	www.intrepidtraveler.com /travels/souvenir.html (643 words)

	Florence Foster Jenkins' legend is revived - (United Press International) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		To Jenkins, he was always "dear, darling Cosme." She was good to McMoon, putting him on salary and even including one of the undistinguished songs he wrote by the dozen in her Carnegie Hall program.
		Jenkins was from Pennsylvania and had plenty of money, possibly inherited from her late husband.
		Tracy Christensen's costume designs for Jenkins are another delightful aspect of "Souvenir." They tend to reflect the flapper era style but are embellished by many a furbelow that recalls the earlier Edwardian era in which she probably came to adulthood.
	www.washtimes.com /upi-breaking/20041223-084135-8968r.htm (694 words)

	Florence Foster Jenkins Even MORE Glory RUSS4663142 [MB]: Classical Reviews- April2002 MusicWeb(UK) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Florence Foster Jenkins (sop), Jenny Williams (sop), Esme Crowfoot (sop) with Cosme McMoon at the piano.
		Foster Jenkins at least probably looked the part (she had a Wagnerian ugliness, a Valkyrian demeanour) but Isolde’s Transfiguration is somehow massacred.
		Foster Jenkins as the Marschallin is more akin to Field Marshall Kitchener so hectoring is her tone.
	www.musicweb-international.com /classrev/2002/May02/FFJ.htm (1084 words)

	York Theater Company: Souvenir
		Florence Foster Jenkins was a society woman and a singer of little discernible musical talent, who gave a notoriously bad—or funny, depending on your viewpoint—recital at Carnegie Hall, in October 1944, a month before her death at 76, and left a legacy of no less atrocious recordings of high soprano classical chestnuts.
		She, too, is taken aback, when he tells her, as tactfully as he can, that something is lacking in her "accuracy" and "intonation." While she admits, with some shame, to a tendency to "obfuscate the tempi," she claims to have perfect pitch (!) and thinks that that will compensate for any shortcomings.
		Protective of his reputation as a serious musician and thinking this was to be a one-shot deal, he finds that she is quite ready to continue to pursue her dream of making music.
	www.theaterscene.net /ts/articles.nsf/OBP/662BB9B8FD8457DD85256F5E00624BA0 (677 words)

	Guardian Unlimited Arts \| Arts features \| Maureen Lipman on soprano Florence Foster Jenkins
		Florence Foster Jenkins was probably the worst soprano the world has ever seen.
		Florence Foster Jenkins was born in Pennsylvania in 1868 and left home because her father refused to allow her to fulfil her ambition to sing in public.
		Florence built up a coterie of admirers based on the recitals she gave to raise money for charity.
	arts.guardian.co.uk /features/story/0,11710,1607323,00.html (1003 words)

	Classical Music :: The Classical Source :: Florence Foster Jenkins: Murder on the High Cs :: Classical Music
		Jenkins obviously has the range to sing it but lacks the discipline to try and reach the notes suggested by the composer.
		Finally, if you enjoy what Jenkins does to melody, just take a listen to her attempt at the Russian language in “Biassy” — were it not for the wayward warbler this piece is a little gem with words by Pushkin set to Bach’s Prelude XVI.
		To return finally to Florence Foster Jenkins, she was obviously an incredible woman with a strong conviction that she was a great soprano.
	www.classicalsource.com /db_control/db_cd_review.php?id=2446 (1464 words)

	USATODAY.com - 'Souvenir' squeals with diva delight (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Florence Foster Jenkins, the subject of Stephen Temperley's charming Souvenir (* * * out of four), didn't have the benefit of modern pitch-correcting technology.
		But to hear her, as Jenkins, tackle Mozart is to realize your worst fears about how Ashlee Simpson might sound crooning in the shower.
		McMoon, who is played by the versatile Donald Corren, marvels at Jenkins' ability to mistake the hysterical outbursts at her gigs for worshipful appreciation, even when fans bolt for the doors.
	www.usatoday.com /life/theater/reviews/2005-11-10-souvenir_x.htm (326 words)

	The Glory of the Human Voice by Florence Foster Jenkins
		Jenkins was completely an urban phenomenon--she never appeared in the country, indeed she never sang anywhere but the finest of salons, and the high point of her career was a concert at Carnegie Hall.
		Jenkins had inadvertently discovered and reproduced the mating call of the female of the species, and the males were intent upon finding the individual who must have sounded to them like the Marlene Dietrich of potato bugs.
		Jenkins is unsurpassed; as an Orpheus to the denizens of the subterranean world, her music has too powerful an effect.
	www.geocities.com /nodotus/hbreview12.html (780 words)

	A "Souvenir" of the opera (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Exquisitely directed by Vivian Matalon, the play stars Broadway veteran Judy Kaye (a Tony winner for "The Phantom of the Opera") as Florence Foster Jenkins, a real-life society dame who became a cult figure because she was a terrible singer — and didn't know it.
		In this cleverly written two-hander, the show is narrated 20 years after Jenkins' death by her long-suffering accompanist, a composer who used the pseudonym Cosme McMoon.
		Jenkins and McMoon work their way from a single recital for friends in the Ritz Hotel ballroom to a series of concerts, and ultimately to a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall.
	www.thejournalnews.com /apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051111/LIFESTYLE01/511110349/1031 (680 words)

	AfterElton.com - Review of Souvenir (page 2) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		For those not familiar with Florence Foster Jenkins, she happened to be a real life, archetypical example of what would become a very popular comedic stereotype in American culture.
		In the U.S., numerous camp caricatures of Jenkins and her kind were created by our early entertainment industry that still resonate in televisions reruns and camp pop culture today.
		One reason he accepts the artistically distasteful job of accompanying the tone-deaf Jenkins is because he needs rent money, now that his “roommate moved out due to issues of monogamy.” There are many references to his artsy, genderless “music” friends teasing him about his stint as Jenkins accompanist.
	www.afterelton.com /theater/2005/12/souvenir2.html (767 words)

	Souvenir (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Jenkins, a real-life New York society matron of the 1930s and '40s who became famous, or infamous, because of her legendarily terrible voice, is the subject of "Souvenir," a play with music, or "fantasia," by Stephen Temperley.
		The story of Jenkins, who actually recorded an album, "Glory of the Human Voice," and who once sold out a concert at Carnegie Hall, is a fascinating one.
		McMoon, who began his association with Jenkins when he was a struggling young musician and composer, initially treated her efforts with scorn but eventually became her loving friend and supporter.
	www.hollywoodreporter.com /thr/reviews/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001658223 (394 words)

	Max Murray, Bassist: About Florence Foster Jenkins
		N THE FALL of 1944, it was announced that Florence Foster Jenkins was to lift her voice in song from the hallowed stage of Carnegie Hall in New York.
		She was born Florence Foster, the daughter of a starchy Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, banker.
		He was so captivated by the life story of Florence Foster Jenkins that he wrote a play about her.....
	www.maxbass.com /Florence-Foster-Jenkins.htm (2872 words)

	Souvenir (play) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Souvenir is a Broadway play about Florence Foster Jenkins.
		Souvenir centers on the musical career of Florence Foster Jenkins, a wealthy woman with a striking lack of talent.
		In 1932 she met mediocre pianist Cosme McMoon and the two teamed up in the hope of achieving success in the music world.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Souvenir_(play) (128 words)

	She had an ear for the truly awful - The Boston Globe
		She had strong and genuine interpretive instincts, but no sense of pitch or of rhythm; by the time she made her records, she was in her 70s and had no tone left, either.
		And records preserve only part of the full Jenkins effect: There was movement and dancing, and she donned spectacular themed costumes for each of her numbers -- the white-feathered angel wings on the back of the dowager duchess of discord became legendary.
		The extensive investigations of researcher Gregor Benko into the Jenkins legend, documented in his notes for a recent CD (''The Muse Surmounted") featuring a hitherto-unreleased Jenkins recording, do not disclose the soprano as a particularly sympathetic figure.
	www.boston.com /ae/theater_arts/articles/2005/08/14/she_had_an_ear_for_the_truly_awful?page=1 (956 words)

	Souvenir: Judy Kaye is Pitch Perfect in a Touching New Comedy (BroadwayWorld.com) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Florence Foster Jenkins put a lot of joy into her singing.
		Jenkins should be remembered as one of the highlights of her grand career.
		Foster's dignity had been challenged, having developed the same protective affection for her as her accompanist.
	www.broadwayworld.com /viewcolumn.cfm?colid=1737 (1208 words)

	Souvenir, a CurtainUp review
		I'm delighted to report that Stephen Temperly's play about Florence Foster Jenkins, the society woman who enjoyed a remarkably successful concert career despite the fact that her singing was gosh-awful enough for critics to dub her the "dire diva of din" has made a triumphant landing on the Berkshire Theatre Festival's Main Stage.
		When Florence Foster Jenkins (1868 -- 1944), a wealthy New York society widow sang for the audiences at various prestigious recital halls, including Town Hall and ultimately Carnegie Hall, what she heard was something quite different from what the audience heard.
		Jenkins' Park Avenue hotel apartment where he had his first interview as her potential employee.
	www.curtainup.com /souvenier.html (1941 words)

	Compare Prices and Read Reviews on Florence Foster Jenkins- The Glory of the Human Voice at Epinions.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Fully convinced in the beauty of her vocal prowess, she was probably the worst singer ever to hold a solo concert at Carnegie Hall (October 25th, 1944), or anywhere else, for that matter.
		She was apparently aware of the derision and ridicule she reaped from concert goers and critics, but would attribute the laughter that broke forth from crowds, as well as the desultory press, to the slovenly manners and tastes of heathens who could not appreciate her talent.
		Jenkins possessed a number of quirks and idiosyncrasies that elevate the levels of absurdity that she inadvertently cultivated.
	www.epinions.com /content_84551175812 (1186 words)

	Souvenir
		From those of you to whom the name of Florence Foster Jenkins means nothing, I beg a moment's patience.
		For, yes, indeed: Florence Foster Jenkins was asked not only to give recitals at the Ritz, and eventually, her big night at Carnegie Hall (which she filled); she was also asked to make records.
		At the climax, Florence Foster Jenkins, singing her umpteenth but final encore, the Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria," is disturbed by the commotion in the hall.
	www.portifex.com /LArts/FFJSouvenir.htm (1525 words)

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