Review: ”Suurenmoista!”

Even the worst in the world can come out

THE EAR CAN’T HEAR EVERYTHING

The American soprano was perhaps the worst opera singer in the world, but she had her heart in the right place.

The rich cultural offering of the autumn includes one delightfully different theatre experience, a delicacy.

The subject of the play is anything but interesting. To present the life of the singer, who died 60 years ago, and the last significant events of her strange concert career.
If he were Maria Callas or Enrico Caruso, why not?
But this star of the play Magnificent sang from the side of the music and his recordings of the famous arias are, in a word, horrible.
Miraculously, however, playwright Peter Quilter, Helsinki City Theatre and director Neil Hardwick and the rightly chosen cast manage to make a heart-wrenching comedy drama.


Why did he have to sing?


Florence Foster Jenkins’ (1868-1944) career as an opera singer had been prevented by her father – perhaps wisely – in her youth. But after her father’s death, Florence fulfilled her dream with her inheritance money.
“The story is delicious: a seventy-year-old woman loves singing so much that she can’t help but perform. He sounded horrible and people laughed, but he believed the laughter was just jealousy,” says Peter Quilter .

Foster Jenkins once even filled New York’s Carnegie Hall with listeners, so much so that thousands of people who wanted tickets had to be turned away from the door. The environment does not want to break the illusion of a shaken aunt, but agrees to participate in the play.

Foster Jenkins also designed the sets and costumes for his performances himself. At Carnegie Hall, he performed with angelic wings on his back and a crown on his head, and these curiosities also elicit boisterous laughter from the audience at the City Theatre.


Conifer
lovable fool


Riitta Havukainen draws a touching portrait and a diva who sings wonderfully wrong.
“Singing is a precise job, you can’t hear that you’re deliberately singing wrong.
The performance is heartbreaking, as Havukainen’s Florence is a genuine, sincere lover of music. What are we listeners to say, how did poor Florence herself hear her horrible performances in our ears?


The play’s first non-English performance

The Finnish version is the first non-English version of the play that has been seen in 27 countries.
In addition to Riitta Havukainen , the cast includes a friend, a pianist and a lover, interpreted by Eija Vilpas, Jouko Klemettilä and Pertti Koivula. The entire stage is electrified when a full-fledged servant Heidi Herala rushes onto it.
“The play is a story about how life should be lived. Go and rejoice, and don’t care what other people say. Anything can be done,” says Peter Quilter .