Sissieretta Jones: "The Greatest Singer of Her Race," 1868-1933

9: The Final Troubadour Years, 1906–1909

: 168 : 8 9 The Final Troubadour Years 1906–1909 1906–1907 Season As the owners and managers of two shows—the Black Patti Troubadours and the new Dandy Dixie Minstrels—Voelckel and Nolan had their hands full as they began rehearsals for the 1906–7 season. Nolan began practice for the Dandy Dixie Minstrels on 23 July 1906 in Washington, D.C., at the blackowned Majestic Theater, while Voelckel started rehearsals for the Troubadours ’ eleventh season on the same day in Liberty, New York, at the Opera House. The Minstrels, a smaller company of black performers than the Troubadours , was a traditional minstrel show with an olio that included singing, dancing, a slack-wire performance, a comedy sketch, and an acrobatic number . John Rucker, the chief comedian of the Troubadours during the previous season, joined the Minstrels, and “Jolly” John Larkins, a vaudeville performer and actor, was hired as the comedy star of the Troubadours. Larkins played “King Jasper,” the “Negro” king of Zululand, in the opening comedy sketch, “A Royal Coon.” This season the final part of the Troubadours’ show featured Sissieretta playing Germaine, the Lost Marchioness, in the chateau scene from the 1877 comic opera by Robert Jean Planquette, The Chimes of Normandy.1 The Troubadours, which Sylvester Russell described as “the leading attraction ” traveling through the South,2 planned to spend about ninety-six days in southern states, fifty-four days in the Southwest, and about thirty-five days in the West and Pacific Coast states. Between September and December, the Troubadours performed in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma Territory, the Indian Territories, and in several states in the Deep South. In early December, Sissieretta and the Troubadours received word of the sudden death of world-renowned singer Flora Batson. Batson, forty-six, died at her home in Philadelphia after a brief illness. She was born in Washington, D.C., and, 169 : The Final Troubadour Years, 1906–1909 like Sissieretta, moved to Rhode Island as a child. A long, front-page article in the Indianapolis Freeman (15 December 1906) published after her death said that Batson had first attracted attention singing in the Meeting Street A.M.E. church choir in Providence. Russell, who wrote the article, said that after Batson left the choir, Sissieretta and Marion Adams Harris succeeded her as soloists at the church. Russell said that Batson had been married twice. Her second marriage, in December 1887, was to her white manager, John C. Bergen, who made his living giving concerts for colored churches and offering prizes to the largest ticket sellers. “Despite what happened in after years, it was a case of true love, for they were devoted to each other,” Russell said. The Bergen concerts in which Batson starred were always “the greatest social events in colored musical circles everywhere.” Some sources claimed Batson divorced Bergen and that he died of a broken heart, but Russell had a different story. He said Bergen moved Batson and her mother from Providence to Philadelphia shortly after Sissieretta got the leading part in the 1892 Madison Square Garden “Negro Jubilee.” When Bergen’s health failed, Batson and her mother learned he had not purchased the Philadelphia house as they had thought but instead had leased it. Bergen, to whom Batson had entrusted her money against her mother’s advice, had used her money to pay for his grown son from a previous marriage to attend college. Bergen had intended to pay back the money with future concert ventures, but his health prevented him from doing that. Russell said Bergen spent some time recuperating at the Soldier ’s Home but eventually went back to live with his wife, “whose love had chilled.” After Bergen died Batson continued to sing under a manager who was not popular with people, and many of her concerts failed, according to Russell. The manager persuaded her to join the show South before the War, in which she did scenes and selections from Il Trovatore.3 Other sources said that Batson twice traveled the world, including Europe, South Africa, India, China, and Japan, and sang before the crowned heads of Europe and leaders of countries in the Far East.4 Russell said that Batson went to Australia as the star of the McAdoo Concert Company and was successful there. When McAdoo died she returned to the United States and toured. Her final appearance on the stage was a concert at Bethel A.M.E. church in Philadelphia on Thanksgiving evening, 29 November...