Florence Foster Jenkins was perhaps the most self-confident woman who ever lived. She thought herself to be God’s greatest gift to music, and she demonstrated her talent in solo concerts in New York City in the 1930s. She even made some recordings, which you can now find on YouTube. If you have never heard the Aria of the Queen of the Night before, search for a proper recording when you are done listening:
Stephen Temperley’s play Souvenir capitalizes on Jenkin’s cult status – though he might have overestimated it. The play did not do very well when it premiered on Broadway with Judy Kaye, who was brilliant in the role, despite being an incredible singer herself:
Now the play is having its German premiere with Desiree Nick in the role of the self-deluded soprano. Nick’s performance is fundamentally different from Kaye’s: Kaye potrayed FFJ as an innocent, a child, who believed she was performing a sacred duty. Nick’s portrayal is of a more conventionally arrogant diva, whose lack of talent only makes her arrogance more laughable. This lessens the impact of her single moment of self-awareness, at the end of the play, when she realizes that the audience has been laughing at her all along.
Nick is a comedienne, Kaye is a singer. The New York production ended with Kaye singing the “Ave Maria” the way FFJ “heard” it in her head. Nick had no such resources. She left the stage defeated, while Kaye’s Jenkins triumphed, atleast inside her own imagination. I found the German production entertaining but unfullfilling. The scene of FFJ’s Carnegie Hall concert, in which she wore a new costume for each aria, was a good opportunity for Nick to use her experience doing standup comedy. She actually made one of her costume changes on stage, while singing. But the end of the play felt weak and unsatisfying.
