Miss Berggren gave private lessons in her home. She commuted to New York from Center City for 11 years to teach at the Juilliard School of Music. She taught at the Philadelphia Musical Academy and Settlement Music School, and in the music department at Temple University for 12 years.

After retiring from Temple in 1976, she continued to teach part-time there as professor emeritus. She was still coaching students in her home until six years ago, said Tonia Tecce, a longtime student.

Tecce, a coloratura soprano, returned to singing after her children were born. She sought out Miss Berggren for lessons, and launched a successful concert career.

Soprano Diana Soviero became a student of Miss Berggren's in the 1960s and went on the establish herself in dramatic roles, notably as Nedda, Manon Lescaut, and Madama Butterfly. She has performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, at La Scala in Milan and for the Opera Company of Philadelphia.

In 1997, Soviero told an Inquirer reporter that "when I went to Juilliard, I studied with Florence, and after a while, I was moved to another teacher. I could feel that she wasn't right for me, and I asked to go back to Florence. The department head told me I had to move ahead. I said I had to go back to go ahead, and he finally let me. I owe my voice to Florence and to Martin Rich, the accompanist and Juilliard conductor who worked with me later."

Miss Berggren and Rich, who died in 2000, prepared Soviero for her Metropolitan Opera debut in La Boheme in 1987. In 2000, Soviero and Tecce were among the students who honored Miss Berggren at a gala performance at the Academy of Music, where she had attended Philadelphia Orchestra concerts for 60 years.

Miss Berggren grew up in Center City. She planned to teach school and attended the former Philadelphia Normal School, a training center for public school teachers. The staff there did not approve of her taking voice lessons and tried to get her to quit, she told a Temple News Bureau reporter in 1976.

When she refused, "they sent me to the principal's office for my impudence," she said. The next day, Miss Berggren dropped out of school and continued to study music with prominent teachers in New York and Philadelphia.

To support her studies, she worked for many years as a sales clerk at N. Snellenberg & Co. Tecce said that though Miss Berggren had a beautiful voice, she chose to teach instead of pursuing a performing career.

To have a better understanding of how the human voice and breathing apparatus function, Mis Berggren spent six weeks observing doctors at the former Phipps Institute, a facility for the study and treatment of lung diseases in Philadelphia.

Later, when she was teaching at Temple, she would have a throat and chest specialist speak to her classes.

Miss Berggren told a Temple reporter that "two of the most important factors in teaching are inspiration and dedication. You have to make students love and respect what they have in their throat. You have to inspire them, not take the starch out of them as those old biddies at the Normal School tried to do to me years ago."

Miss Berggren is survived by three nephews and four nieces.

A funeral will be at 11 a.m. tomorrow at Goldsteins' Rosenberg's Raphael-Sacks, 6410 N. Broad St. Burial will be in Mount Jacob Cemetery, Glenolden.

Donations may be made to Temple University, Boyer School of Music, Florence Berggren Scholarship Fund, 1715 N. Broad St., Philadelphia 19122.