Sarah Robinson-Duff

Sarah Robinson-Duff (May 1, 1868 – May 11, 1934) was an American operatic soprano and celebrated voice teacher of many important opera singers, including Mary Garden and Alice Nielsen.

She wrote the vocal pedagogy book Simple Truths Used by Great Singers (1919) which was based in the tradition of Robinson-Duff's teacher, Mathilde Marchesi.

Their daughter, Frances Robinson-Duff (1878-1951), became an important teacher of drama whose students included Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy Gish, Helen Hayes, Mary Pickford, and Clark Gable among many others.

[6] In 1897 she relocated to Paris, and celebrated the turn of the century at a party held by Horace Porter, United States Ambassador to France, and his wife.

[8] Her other successful students included contralto Jessie Bartlett Davis; sopranos Frieda Hempel, Mary McCormic, Alice Nielsen, and Marcia Van Dresser; mezzo-sopranos Olive Fremstad and Fanchon H. Thompson; and vaudeville star Nora Bayes.