Tryphosa Bates-Batcheller

She is often mentioned in the same context as Florence Foster Jenkins: both are apt to be criticised as people who were publicly tolerated and even celebrated as singers due to their wealth and social position, despite a lack of talent.

She came from a family of some means and pedigree, and was privately educated in France and the United States, graduating from Radcliffe College in 1899.

Tryphosa believed she had a good singing voice and was encouraged by friends and relatives, eventually studying classical singing with several famous teachers, including Giovanni Sgambati, Blanche and Mathilde Marchesi, Sir George Henschel, B. T. Lang, as well as Veda, Bimboni, and Giraudet.

[1] Her wealth and social position seems to have papered over any doubts teachers, managers and critics had about the dismal quality of her actual singing, and she appeared in many private concerts and benefits, sometimes with the composer Jules Massenet accompanying her.

A relentless social climber who chased after aristocrats and royalty, Bates-Batcheller was hampered in this by her own Catholicism, and was thus prevented from assaulting the important Protestant court of England.