The film where Meryl’s off key but still on song

MErYL STREEP told me it’s harder to sing badly than to warble well. Meryl, a three-time Academy Award winner, plays the title role in Florence Foster Jenkins, a film about one of the worst opera singers of all time.

Directed by Stephen Frears, it co-stars Hugh Grant as the husband whose main task in life is to prevent his wife from discovering that people disparage her behind her back.

It also features Simon Helberg, from the Big Bang theory tV show, as Jenkins’ long-suffering pianist Cosme McMoon.

Streep — pictured in the role — was familiar with the recordings Jenkins produced and distributed herself, as well as the ‘peculiarity of her voice’, and gives a poignant portrait of a woman lost in her own world.

‘part of what is endearing about Florence is that recordings today are so produced — on the records Florence made, you could hear her breathing, sometimes in the wrong places. She’d take a breath, and come in late.’

Streep said she tried to learn all the arias Jenkins sang. ‘I did as well as I could,’ she told me, matter-of-factly. And then she had to learn how to sing them badly.

Incredibly, Jenkins is remembered more fondly than many singers with perfect pitch. ‘David Bowie put out a list of his 25 favourite recordings of all time — and included her!’ she adds.

to the end of her life, she never realised that she couldn’t carry a tune. Streep, on the other hand, can actually sing well when she has to. She said Jenkins reminded her of when ‘my kids would get up in the living room and do shows for the gathered relatives at Christmas.

‘We weren’t allowed to leave, and we weren’t allowed to laugh. those were the rules. And so you have to sit there, and not hurt anybody’s feelings. they worked so hard — and it’s perfectly awful! — but we love them. Not just because they are our children. It’s the commitment that’s irresistible.’

SHE said it was like that with Jenkins. people admired her enthusiasm. Initially, Jenkins gave private concerts during which her audience cheered her on. But in 1944 she hired Carnegie Hall and the critics bared their teeth — and her husband couldn’t hide the reviews from her.

Streep said she sympathised. ‘You sing in the shower and you think you sound pretty great! I think we’re all self-deluded sometimes.’

How difficult was it, as an actress renowned for being a perfectionist, to play someone so imperfect?

‘Jenkins read the reviews in a paper and it broke her heart,’ she said. ‘But if you live in the modern world and make a mistake, and go online, and read about yourself, you’ll hurt your feelings. No one is perfect.’

Except, perhaps, Imelda Staunton. Streep told me that she’d seen Staunton play Gypsy at the Savoy and thought she was faultless.

‘Wasn’t she magnificent! What a lot of power in that tiny package. Good Lord, she’s amazing! And seems ten foot tall on the stage.’

She sometimes thinks about doing a musical herself; and then she thinks about the need to ‘slow down, and do other things, like life’. Not on her short visit to London, though, during which she crammed in a meeting about a possible film project — one that she wasn’t ready to share with me, just yet.

Sometime down the road, she might do a film of the play Master Class, playing Maria Callas — who certainly could sing.

But that’s a long way off, and she hasn’t fully committed to it because it was due to be made by her friend and director, the late Mike Nichols.

For now, she’s keeping a beady eye on the election process in the U.S. and hopes Hillary Clinton will prevail.

‘I think this has been just the beginning of the ugliest campaign we’ll ever witness. You’ll have to shower four times a day during this presidential race.’