Tryphosa Bates-Batcheller (April 14, 1876–1952), born Tryphosa Duncan Bates, was an American socialite, club woman and concert singer. She is often mentioned in the same context as

Florence Foster Jenkins Florence Foster Jenkins (born Narcissa Florence Foster; July 19, 1868 – November 26, 1944) was an American socialite and amateur coloratura soprano who became known, and mocked, for her flamboyant performance costumes and notably poor sing ...

: 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.

Background and education

Tryphosa Duncan Bates was born the only child of Theodore Cornelius and Emma Frances (Duncan) Bates. Her father was a manufacturer, proprietor, and a Republican politician of English ancestry. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Tryphosa (Larkin) Duncan. She came from a family of some means and pedigree, and was privately educated in France and the United States, graduating from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

in 1899. According to the '' Biographical Cyclopedia of U.S. Women'', her family was prominent in the

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

area, and her ancestor Joshua Bates gave $50,000 in 1853 and later 30,000 volumes to the city of Boston toward the establishment of the

Boston Public Library The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, founded in 1848. The Boston Public Library is also Massachusetts' Library for the Commonwealth (formerly ''library of last recourse''), meaning all adult re ...

. Apparently the idea of the modern library, where books could be taken from shelves by readers and then returned, was his, and the Boston Library was the first in the world to do this; its main reading room is called Bates Hall.

Musical career

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 Mathilde Marchesi (; 24 March 1821 – 17 November 1913) was a German mezzo-soprano, a singing teacher, and a proponent of the bel canto vocal method. Biography Mathilde Graumann was born in Frankfurt. Her aunt was the pianist Dorothea von Er ...

, Sir

George Henschel Sir Isidor George Henschel (18 February 185010 September 1934) was a German-born British baritone, pianist, conductor, composer and academic teacher. First trained as a pianist, he was a concert singer who sometimes sang to his own accompanime ...

, B. T. Lang, as well as Veda, Bimboni, and Giraudet. In 1904 she married the wealthy shoe manufacturer Francis B. Batcheller and thereafter retained her maiden name as the first half of her hyphenated married name. The couple left their native

North Brookfield, Massachusetts North Brookfield is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,735 at the 2020 census. The town includes the census-designated place of North Brookfield (CDP). History North Brookfield was first settled in ...

home and set up home in an apartment in Paris, France.Mary H. Graves (ed) "Tryphosa D. Bates", ''Representative women of New England'', 1904 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 Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are ''Manon'' (1884 ...

accompanying her. Her wealth enabled her to appear on the cover of America's ''

Musical Courier The ''Musical Courier'' was a weekly 19th- and 20th-century American music trade magazine that began publication in 1880. The publication included editorials, obituaries, announcements, scholarly articles and investigatory writing about musical ...

'' magazine twice, in 1904 and 1906. A relentless social climber who chased after aristocrats and royalty, Bates-Batcheller was hampered in this by her own

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, and was thus prevented from assaulting the important Protestant court of England. Her aggressive pursuits in this area are chronicled in the four books of memoirs and one novel she had published. In 1941, she returned to the United States and, shortly after, recorded two sides for the same vanity record label ( Melotone) in New York as Jenkins. These recordings lay unnoticed in the collection of the musicologist and record collector Larry Holdridge until they were published in 2004 on a compact disc entitled " The Muse Surmounted" (Homophone 1001), the booklet for which contains a biography of Bates-Batcheller, as well as recordings and information about Jenkins and others of the same style, along with photos of each and other information. The recording presents a compilation of the history of this kind of singing on record, and the writer, musicologist Gregor Benko, states his opinion that Bates-Batcheller was an even "greater" bad singer than Florence Foster Jenkins. A review of this compilation stated that "Bates-Batcheller's contribution to music ranks with

William McGonagall William McGonagall (March 1825 – 29 September 1902) was a Scottish poet and public performer. He gained notoriety as an poetaster, extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work. He wrote ...

's to poetry". Tryphosa mentioned in one of her books that she also recorded a Schubert song, but this has not, alas, been located.

Works

* ''Glimpses of Italian court life; happy days in Italia adorata'', Doubleday, Page & company, New York 1906. * ''Italian Castles and Country Seats'', Longmans, Green & Co., New York 1911. * ''Royal Spain of today'', Longmans, Green & Co., New York 1913. * ''The Soul of a Queen'', Brentano's, New York 1943. * ''France in sunshine and shadow'', Brentano's, New York 1944.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bates-Batcheller, Tryphosa 1876 births 1952 deaths 19th-century Roman Catholics 20th-century Roman Catholics American women singers American Roman Catholics American outsider musicians Radcliffe College alumni People from North Brookfield, Massachusetts Singers from Massachusetts