Drexel Hill’s Robbins faces a new challenge - learning to sing off key
Drexel Hill’s Rebecca Robbins remembers how she was introduced to opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins. She was a firstyear voice major at the Curtis Institute of Music when the only other voice major that year, Don Marrazzo, asked her to come and listen to a CD.
“He said, ‘I found this new soprano and she’s awesome.’ I started to listen, and I wasn’t sure if it was a joke,” Robbins said. “He was watching my face to see my reaction. I said to him,’ This is really bad singing!’ And then he told me her story.”
Jenkins, born in Wilkes-Barre in 1868, was a wealthy socialite who loved music and believed she was a talented opera singer. She began to host recitals in New York. Critics attacked her. She had no true talent, but audiences loved her and she truly believed she was a great singer.
For Robbins, her story was certainly interesting, but at the time, she thought no more about it. Little did she imagine that years later, she’d play the role of Jenkins in a Walnut Street Theatre production.
“Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins” is the current production of the Walnut’s Independence Studio on 3, the intimate 80 seat theater on the third floor.
It’s been an entirely new challenge for the Delco singer, who’s a favorite at the Walnut and has had roles on Broadway and off-Broadway as well as with a national tour of ‘The Phantom of the Opera.’
But, for her role in Souvenir, this classically trained singer had to train herself to purposely sing off-key and master a large speaking role, too.
“I hesitated at first about taking on the role,” Robbins said. “It’s probably the biggest role I’ve ever had. But I didn’t want to say no. I knew it would be a challenge and I wanted to see if I could do it.”
Robbins began by researching the life and music of Jenkins.
“I tried to find every single recording I could possibly find,” she said. She also found a book about Jenkins’ life.
Then, too, even before she knew she’d have this role, Robbins saw the 2016 film version of Jenkins’ life starring Meryl Streep.
“Jenkins was so unique and I wanted to see how they treated her in the film,” she said. “I liked how they portrayed her.”
In the theater version, playwright Stephen Temperley focuses on Jenkins and her relationship with her longtime piano accompanist Cosme McMoon, played by Jonas Cohen, making his Walnut debut.
Well before rehearsals began, Robbins started to memorize her speaking role, but also began to practice how she would sing opera arias off key.
.Marrazzo, her longtime friend from her student days at Curtis, helped her with this.
“He’s now a voice instructor in Amsterdam and I e-mailed him and asked, ‘How can I do this role and still preserve my voice?’” she said.
“He coached me long distance. We used Facebook Messenger. I had to learn the sing the arias correctly before I could make them sound wrong.
“And then, it’s almost as if you have to come up with your own alternate melody so that basically what you’re singing doesn’t match what the piano player is playing.”
Beween the speaking role and the arias sung off-key, her voice gets quite a workout, especially with eight performances each week. No wonder Robbins keeps a steady supply of tea bags and lozenges backstage.
“I drink so much tea at every performance,” she said. “Every time I come offstage, I take a big gulp.”
Yet another challenge is keeping up with the unusual number of costumes.
“Jenkins had a costume designed for every song she sang,” said Robbins. “So that’s what we did.”
That means she had five costumes for Act 1 and nine in Act 11. They cover a wide range of flamboyant attire.