The worst singer in the world who conquered America (9 photos + 1 video)

7 May 2024

This story is truly beautiful. It is about self-confidence, the pursuit of one's goals and unquestionable confidence in one's own talent.

In 1868, Florence Foster Jenkins was born into the family of a wealthy industrialist. Since childhood, the beautiful creature has been drawn to music and really wanted to sing and play the piano. And everything would have been fine, but when Florence was born, the birth was delivered by a bear, who dropped the baby and trampled on both her ears. She had a complete lack of voice, hearing and sense of rhythm.

Florence did not pay attention to the fact that all the piano teachers who came to her from the age of seven refused to interact in any way with the student. Having recovered from the shock, they approached their parents and categorically asserted that their daughter could become anyone, but not a singer. One, however, was persuaded and, for a lot of money, she convinced Florence that she was a talented performer.

The girl didn’t want to see herself as anyone else, and after school she even ran away from her parents, arm in arm with her future husband, to New York when her dad refused to pay for her music studies.

The marriage of the future star lasted only a year. Unfortunately, in addition to her husband's last name, Florence still had one more gift from him - syphilis. He completely deprived her of hair and, no matter how ironic and sad it may sound, severely damaged her hearing.

Later, Jenkins also injured her hand, which made her future as a pianist impossible. It would seem that everything told Florence that the stage was not for her, but such little things could not stop a woman who wanted to sing.

Florence in her house

Jenkins inherited a very large sum of money from her deceased parent, which allowed her to live comfortably, practice vocals and organize the Verdi Club, where all fans of classical music gathered. Jenkins automatically found herself in high society, where she began to actively make connections, attend a variety of events and... give her own concerts. Despite the fact that she never knew how to sing, she adored it. She didn’t know Italian or French, so when performing, she distorted the words as she wanted, because the main thing is with her soul.

Florence's constant accompanist was Cosme McMoon, and it was not easy for him, because he had to constantly adapt to errors in rhythm, notes, tempo and everything else. What accents and diction there are! Everything was unimportant, Florence sang as she wanted and sang with her soul. Moreover, any roles, even the most complex ones, which not every experienced opera singer can take on. A certain critic wrote about her: “She cackled and screamed, trumpeted and vibrated.”

Historian Stephen Pyle declared that Florence Jenkins became "the worst opera singer in the world: no one before or since has so successfully freed herself from the shackles of musical literacy."

Florence Jenkins and Cosme McMoon

Jenkins was rich enough to organize her own concerts, inviting all the important and rich people of New York to them. The critics rejoiced, the audience went crazy. Perhaps only Tommy Wiseau's film "The Room" achieved the same "worst" success. When it's so bad it's good.

The poet William Meredith described his impression of Jenkins's performances as follows: "It was an aesthetic experience in much the same way as the early Christians in the lion ring: immortal in essence and always eaten in the end."

New York Sun critic Earl Wilson wrote a perfect review: "She has a great voice. She can sing anything but the right notes."

Jenkins' friends tried to find some streamlined formulations. “Her singing in all its glory resembled the uncontrollable attack of some large bird.” It was extremely difficult for them to come to Miss Jenkins's concerts, but out of respect for the rich and important person, they came, trying not to cry with laughter at the top of their voices.

At each of her performances, Florence sincerely enjoyed the process. She sang, growled and howled with genuine passion. She invented costumes that were striking in their absurdity and preferred to perform compositions by Brahms, Verdi and Strauss.

Once, at one of her performances, she was dressed up as Carmen, adding castanets and a basket of flowers to her costume. In a frenzy, Florence tossed them into the audience, but the audience returned them to McMoon only for Jenkins to perform an encore aria.

The audience, having understood the essence of her performances, was eager to see them like crazy. Such fun!

In 1937, Meloton Recording invited the already middle-aged Florence to record her own record and, of course, she agreed. When she was invited to a rehearsal, the singer said that all this was not necessary and that she could sing right away, without any preparation.

A woman walked into the studio and started howling. No duplicates, straight to recording. The sound engineers cried, but the record came out because Florence said she sang just perfectly. By the way, records with Jenkins’ performances later became the object of hunting for collectors who were ready to buy her for huge sums of money.

Florence was an incorrigible optimist. When she had an accident, she said that she screamed out of fear so much that her range increased to F of the third octave.

And only at the age of 76 did Florence Jenkins get to where all the performers of those years were eager to go - to Carnegie Hall. The best and most desirable scene in New York.

Tickets sold out instantly, and another two thousand applicants were never able to get to Florence Jenkins’s performance. Typically, Florence herself always approved the list of invited journalists and critics, but the rules of the game at Carnegie Hall were different. And despite the fact that the audience rejoiced and shouted “encore,” the articles, of course, were devastating.

Hopefully, when Miss Florence had a heart attack five days later, she died of happiness and not from ridicule in the media. In the end, she was simply doing what she had been passionate about all her life, what gave her strength and inspiration. It is unlikely that she would have lived for so many years with syphilis, which was treated in those days with arsenic and mercury, if not for music.

There is no point in comparing her with today's "singers" and "singers" with three notes that they barely hit. Florence Jenkins, possessing a complete lack of any ability to sing, achieved stunning success without competent PR, soundtracks, cleaned up sound and superimposed effects. Yes, it wasn’t exactly the success she had in mind, but she had fans, she was happy and she made her loved ones happy. There weren't that many of them.

And is there any difference who she was: a clown or an opera singer? She was the only one.

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