Judy Kaye. Photo by Carol Rosegg (left), Florence Foster Jenkins (rt)

Florence Foster Jenkins was a society woman and a singer of little discernible musical talent, who gave a notoriously bad—or funny, depending on your viewpoint—recital at Carnegie Hall, in October 1944, a month before her death at 76, and left a legacy of no less atrocious recordings of high soprano classical chestnuts. In “Souvenir,” a play with music, which opened the York Theater Company’s season at St. Peter’s Church at Citigroup Center on December 1, author Stephen Temperley, director Vivian Matalon and a cast consisting of Judy Kaye and Jack F. Lee probe the question that music lovers have been asking for almost eight decades: Did Florence Foster Jenkins really think she was accomplished or did she realize how unmusical she was and not care?

The announcement that Kaye--whose career has taken her from important roles in “On the Twentieth Century,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “ Ragtime” and “Mamma Mia” to Leonard Bernstein’s “Arias and Barcarolles” and “Trouble in Tahiti,” as well as Puccini’s Musetta--would play the legendary Jenkins inspired a further query: How could as good a singer as Mme K impersonate as bad a singer as Mme J and not harm her voice? I am relieved to report that Kaye, in a tour-de-force, makes a moving figure of the delusional FFJ and that the bit of whooping and croaking she is called upon to do in snatches of Jenkins repertory do not seem to be hurting her at all, as evidenced by the one piece of breathtaking singing that the script permits her.

In this intriguing “Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins,” we see her through the eyes of Cosme McMoon, her long-time accompanist, played by Lee, whose Broadway credits include music direction of “Applause”, “Peter Pan” and “Irene.” On the 35^th anniversary her death, an older and somewhat acid McMoon, playing in a Greenwich Village piano bar, reminisces about “Mme Flo,” who changed his life--as an idealistic young, struggling musician and unsuccessful songwriter, recovering from a breakup with a straying significant other--when she expressed interest in working with him. Lee plays popular songs, beginning with “One for My Baby and One More for the Road,” to punctuate and comment on the action.

The ideal Madame strives for is “the music you hear in your head—the beauty you cannot quite grasp,” but Kaye’s Jenkins stuns Lee’s young pianist with a ghastly “Caro nome,” from Verdi’s “ Rigoletto,” belting the recitative fortissimo at any old pitch, in any old rhythm, clucking the coloratura, and mangling the Italian. She, too, is taken aback, when he tells her, as tactfully as he can, that something is lacking in her “accuracy” and “intonation.” While she admits, with some shame, to a tendency to “obfuscate the tempi,” she claims to have perfect pitch (!) and thinks that that will compensate for any shortcomings. McMoon notes that Madame is so “triumphantly sure of herself” and starts to feel obliged “to protect her” from any harsh reality. When he attempts to improve her pitch, she blithely informs him that she deplores “the modern mania for accuracy”!

Jenkins and McMoon give a wildly successful charity benefit recital, consisting of 24 scheduled numbers plus five encores, in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel ballroom. Protective of his reputation as a serious musician and thinking this was to be a one-shot deal, he finds that she is quite ready to continue to pursue her dream of making music. She is relieved—“My greatest fear was that I should look somehow ridiculous”—but he is apprehensive that, as word of her performances spreads, she will risk exposure to “the cruelest part of the audience—the ones who come to laugh.”

Given an opportunity to make a recording, the fearless Jenkins wants to tackle the usually daunting coloratura challenges of “Der Hölle Rache,” the Queen of the Night’s aria from the second act of Mozart’s “ Die Zauberflöte,” but McMoon is afraid that hearing the record will destroy her illusions. Instead, she is delighted—“It has spirit” is her assessment—but detects a small imperfection (only one?) and blames him. When his explosion wounds her, he sings “Crazy Rhythm,” a catchy pop tune, and smoothes over the situation.

The second act focuses on Jenkins’ Carnegie Hall recital. World War II is raging and the event will be a benefit for the Red Cross with members of the military in attendance. Jenkins thinks those who criticize her just envy her—“Jealousy is a terrible thing”—but McMoon, whose songs she wants to include, wonders, “Would her folly or madness or whatever be enough to keep her safe? … Could I protect her?”

Kaye and Lee dash through bits of the Bell Song from Delibes’ “ Lakmé,” McMoon’s “Serenata Mexicana,” the Jewel Song from Gounod’s “Faust,” a coquettish Laughing Song from Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus,” “Der Hölle Rache”— “They were screaming,” reports Lee’s McMoon--and, in tribute, to the armed forces, “Coming In on a Wing and a Prayer.” For an encore she dons angel wings, the sort of attire Jenkins really wore for her concert appearances, vividly recreated here by costume designer Tracy Christensen, for her beloved “Ave Maria,” in the Bach-Gounod version, sung in child-like tones, and brings down the house, but not in the way she had hoped.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” weeps the depressed diva, in her dressing room, after the recital. “How could you let me make such a fool of myself?” she demands of the pianist, who, against all odds, manages to preserve her illusions even then and insure a happy ending for this most unusual of diva stories.

St. Peter’s at Citigroup Center

619 Lexington Avenue at 54^th Street

December 1-12: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday & Saturday at 8 p.m.;

Wednesday & Saturday at 2:30 p.m.; & Sunday at 3 p.m.

December 3-January 2: Monday-Friday at 8 p.m.; Wednesday at 2:30 p.m.; & Sunday at 3 & 7:30 p.m.

Tickets $55; student tickets on day of performance $20

Tickets $55; student tickets on day of performance $20