Florence Foster Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins (born Narcissa Florence Foster; July 19, 1868 – November 26, 1944) was an American socialite and amateur soprano who became known and mocked for her flamboyant performance costumes and notably poor singing ability. Stephen Pile, in his book The Book of Heroic Failures ranked her "the world's worst opera singer ... No one, before or since, has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation."

Despite – or perhaps because of – her technical incompetence, she became a prominent musical camp cult figure in New York City during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Cole Porter, Gian Carlo Menotti, Lily Pons, Sir Thomas Beecham, and other celebrities were among her fans. Enrico Caruso reportedly "regarded her with affection and respect."

The poet William Meredith wrote that a Jenkins recital "was never exactly an aesthetic experience, or only to the degree that an early Christian among the lions provided aesthetic experience; it was chiefly immolatory, and Madame Jenkins was always eaten, in the end."

Personal life and early career

Narcissa Florence Foster was born July 19, 1868, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Charles Dorrance Foster, an attorney and scion of a wealthy land-owning Pennsylvania family, and Mary Jane Hoagland Foster. Her only sibling, a younger sister named Lillian, died of diphtheria in 1883 at age eight.

Foster said her interest in public performance began when she was seven years old. A pianist, she performed at society functions as "Little Miss Foster", and gave a recital at the White House during the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes. She attended the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania from September 1881 to March 1882, where she was among 20 students in the "Fourth Room". In December, Foster performed "Two Merry Alpine Maids", a "gay duet, with yodel and la la passages", as part of the annual Christmas service.