The Light in the Piazza (2005 Original Broadway Cast)

It Feels Like Travel...

... was my reaction to the music, a few numbers into the LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (when they still were playing the full overture). After performing for some months on a cruise ship - and bearing in mind what is said about how you enjoy your travels even more when you remember them - that's exactly what I said to a companion: it feels like travel.

There's not much to add to the favorable words elsewhere in these pages,but a few thoughts:

Some like barbecue, some like sushi, some like both. Good thing to remember when voting for President,by the way.

I will say that my favorite scores are those that keep growing on me (WEST SIDE STORY as well as THE MUSIC MAN) - and LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA reveals something new at every listening.

Besides evoking that travel experience,PIAZZA comes mighty close to answering Cole Porter's question,'What Is This Thing Called Love?' by contrasting three more experienced, unhappy couples with one pair of 'youngsters' who can't be bothered to ask. This presentation is both classic and quirky - we LIKE quirky. If there are occasional bumps in the lyric-setting, there are also many poetic and provocative insights, here in Craig Lucas' territory.

Over the years I've learned not to spoil my own good time by straining too hard to find that 'catchy' tune. And here's a news flash -
The musical theater hasn't generated any Billboard hits in a very long time (HAIRSPRAY has that old top-40 sound, very clever tunesmithing in fact, but only one of its lyrics is liftable from the story - "I Know Where I've Been"). Barbra Streisand managed to find something like a 'hit' in SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE by opening her Broadway Album with "Putting It Together",which became widely familiar as a result; that, and however many foursquare Lloyd Webber ballads have been sold by concert singers, is about as close as Broadway gets to a hit song anymore.

So the 'no hits' charge is moot, got it? Or one may settle for such as JEKYLL & HYDE, whose composer (Frank "I don't need to worry about plot or character" Wildhorn) knocked himself out to write 'hits' that never got beyond some piano bars and minor cabaret venues. Singable,yes...and empty. Broadway, these days, is so full of 'been there, heard that'.

Have I committed one complete PIAZZA song to memory? So far just one, but so many other beautiful and surprising passages keep rebounding within the brain! If it's not material for my piano bar, so what -- there is always MY FAIR LADY or FOLLIES, CHICAGO or SOUTH PACIFIC for quality singalongs. I'll be very happy if and when someone writes a good new singalong score (David Yazbek might yet pull it off); meanwhile
I'll save "La Passegiata"(edited) for a restaurant...enjoy the bistecca Fiorentina and the pretty melody.

Another important point is to admit (when asking rhetorically what everyone else is raving about), that one may not be quite getting something, and to be careful not to arrive at conclusions before a second hearing, at least (to think that I once recoiled at CANDIDE - now I can't get it out of my head!). Praise to the NY Times' Charles Isherwood for rethinking his opinion of Adam Guettel's score for PIAZZA.


On repeated hearings,LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA exceeds even my delighted first impressions. You may feel differently, but until you've listened at least twice, I can't HEAR you......


















August 1, 2008

Unusual

This is an unusual story to be made into a musical. Many good musicals from similar sources have just not made it--witness "Cry for Us All" in 1970 and "I Remember Mama" in 1979. And those were from a time when Broadway tended more toward the book musical.
It is also an unusual approach to music. As several others reviews have noted, it is somewhat operatic in style. While there are wonderful musical moments, there are no songs that stand out and have become popular.
Whatever the "unusualities," this is certainly refreshing in the midst of the "Spamalots" and "Spelling Bees."
To appreciate the work initially, it is necessary to follow the libretto, which fortunately is included with the cd. Later, it can be heard as good background music--such as on headsets while taking your walk.
Since I do not have access to Broadway, I am grateful for the "Live from Lincoln Center" television presentation. This has given me a more complete reference for following the plot.
While this is not the number one favorite in my collection of musical recordings, it will certainly remain an important part. November 12, 2007

Original and awe-inspiring: Guettel and the voice of Victoria Clark

Adam Guettel's "The Light in the Piazza" is a wonderfully refreshing and complex masterpiece that rightly earned the Best Score Nod at the 2005 Tony Awards. Having seen and heard Guettel's earlier "Floyd Collins" I was well acquainted with how innovative his music was.Because "Piazza" is a romantic melodrama with Firenze,Italy as its location, Guettel's music evokes the 1950's Era with grace,elegance and ingenuity.The opening title is a rhapsodic ode to love and the breezes twirling the leaves in the piazza is vividly acute under Guettel's pen.Victoria Clark has the most accomplished and cultured female voice currently on Broadway.Her rendering of 'Dividing Day' is heart-crushingly poignant.Clark's voice is accurate always and true in pitch and vibrato.She blends perfectly with the thinner voiced Kelli O'Hara in the opening.O'Hara's voice is a lighter, less mature sounding coloratura, but is perfect for the part she plays.An outstanding choice to counter balance other Broadway offerings.Clark's new solo cd "Fifteen Seconds of Grace" is highly recommended.
RATING A+ October 17, 2007

Will endure long after we are gone...

My daughters and I had the good fortune to see this musical shortly before it left Chicago. We love musicals and all agreed that this is one of the best we've seen in many years. Why?
First of all, the story is simple, yet basic to everyone. It's about finding love and embracing it to the greatest extent possible. For Margaret, it's about losing a passion for someone that once existed, but recognizing it's not too late to help your daughter find hers. Most of all, it's about the simplicity of pure love in a complicated world and how it can break down all language, cultural, and even physical barriers to conquer all.
The composers matched characters and emotions perfectly, from Clara's cries from her heart in "The Light in the Piazza" to Fabrizio's love at first site in "Love to Me". How can you not love the beginning lyrics in "Love to Me"? ("The day we meet. The way you lean against the wind, and do not know that you are beautiful.)
Or Margaret's lament in the reprise to "The Beauty Is". The lyric ("If I could, then I would paint it over. I would be there and I wouldn't turn away. If I only had a chance to not turn away... and the beauty is, and the beauty is, the beauty is.")is a statement about everyone's life and the decisions they make and regret.
"Say it Somehow" is one of the most beautiful songs about the fact that love transcends language and cultural barriers.
One reviewer missed the entire point of Clara's tirade scene. Her passion to protect her love is just that, pure passion, not checked by proprieties. It is a reaction that is understood in all languages, a reaction from the heart to someone who is posing as a threat to take her love away from her. We should all be so passionate when our love is threatened.
Thank you Adam Guettel for a show and album that we will enjoy for the rest of our lives. We need more musicals like this one. I am sure that it will endure the test of time. It is a universal story of love coupled with music for the soul. July 30, 2007

Snoozeville

The only thing more sleep inducing than this cast album is sitting through the actual show. The music is very pretty but too similar and will lull you into a deep coma! July 23, 2007

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