dreaming through music
by Douglas Messerli
Adam Guettel (lyrics and music), Craig Lucas
(book), The Light in the Piazza /
the performance I saw with Howard N. Fox was at LAOpera’s production at the
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on Sunday, October 13, 2019
I don’t like reviews that begin with the
critic’s statements of his or her own ability to speak out about the work, but
I have to admit that I begin this review with severe doubts my own powers to
write intelligently about it.
And
it is no accident that she has lost her mind in the incident, since we
gradually discover in the work that this young girl, Clara Johnson (Disney star
Dove Cameron) is what her mother and father perceive is mentally-challenged
having been kicked in the head by a small Shetland pony in her childhood.
The
girl, now 26 years of age, does seem far younger than her years and is given to
occasional flights of excitement and over-exhilarated behavior that might lead
a casual observer to wonder if she has a deep emotional instability.
Yet, for all that—and this is a problem in all the versions of this work
which I have experienced, the book by Elizabeth Spencer, the movie directed by Guy
Green (and the weakest of these versions), and now the musical, all are rather
vague about the actual mental problems of the lovely young Clara. If perhaps
she seems overly naïve, falling immediately in love with Fabrizio, so does he
seem equally naïve and just as innocent—with only the excuse that he is still
almost a teenager, having just turned 20.
Clara, however, quickly learns several words of Italian, and quickly is
able to speak up against her over-protective mother, Margaret (the great singer
Renée Fleming); and, ultimately, when she and Fabrizio are about to be married,
quite quickly learns the Roman Catholic liturgy, including several Latin
phrases. For me, this has always been a problem with this work. If she is truly
medically impaired, so might we all be.
What is important in this work—with its absolutely beautiful songs and
musical arpeggios, and absolutely charming if quite simple set by Robert Jones
along with almost magical lighting by Mark Henderson—is that the elders, who
almost all have failed in their adventures with love are desperate to protect
their youngest from the same pains they have suffered.
At
the heart of this musical are the failures of the adult relationships:
Margaret’s long empty marriage to her business-hungry husband Roy (Malcolm
Sinclair), the unfaithfulness of Fabrizio’s father Signor Naccarelli (Brian
Stokes Mitchell)—which at one point is described as recognized by his more
faithful and forgiving wife (Marie McLaughlin)—and Fabrizio’s far-more
disillusioned sibling Giuseppe (Liam Tamme) and his wife Franca (Celinde
Schoenmaker),
The
love of the two innocents is just that: a pure expression of what they suddenly
feel. One might suggest that they are both not in touch with the real world,
but in another sense they are the only ones who do know what love might be, and
the beauty in which they sing about their love represents some of the highest
moments of this opera-musical.
And
yes, it is truly a kind of operatic piece, in which, often the lyrics move to
complete abstraction, words like “piazza” having to be desperately elided in
the work’s major song in Act Two, Scene 3, sung by a very excited (back in
Florence after a desperate attempt to take her away from Fabrizio to Rome by
her mother), “The Light in the Piazza” and the gushing expression of love by
both Clara and Fabrizio at the end of Act One, “Say It Tomorrow.”
It
is not accidental that in my first round of my musical theater favorites in My Year 2018, I could not choose a song
from this wonderful musical: none of them are songs you can take home to your
favorite local stage. They need operatic productions, with a complete orchestra
with harp, major percussion instruments, violins, violas, celli, bass, piano,
oboe, etc., and great conductor to oversee this orchestral combination, in this
case by the more than competent Kimberly Grigsby, who garnered major applause
upon her entries into the pit.
So
why mightn’t I just say I loved this work and cried through it all?
One
of the greatest singers of the world was starring in this production, Renée
Fleming, the central figure of this production, a woman whom I greatly admire
from her various operatic performances. But here, I felt, she was toning down
her grand voice for several reasons. She clearly did not want to out-perform
the younger singers, particularly her stage daughter, Clara. But to give
Cameron her due, she did quite remarkably well with her fragile soprano voice
in representing her own blossoming “coming out”—and in this case that really is
what it is, a sudden recognition that she too has rights, particularly when it
comes to love.
In
his role as Fabrizio, Houchen literally comes alive as one of the most
remarkable young singers of today; I would immediately advise him to get out of
Les Misérables-like roles and move
into better musicals or even operas wherever and whenever they might appear. He
is so talented that he might do remarkable things in many a Broadway revival of
the great musicals of Guettel’s predecessors, from his mother Mary Rodgers to
his grandfather, Richard. I think Houchen might have been great in Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd as the young sailor in love
with Johanna. In some senses he is the real charm of this Piazza production.
Celinde Schoenmaker was wonderful as the unhappy wife of the also
talented Giuseppe. Her evil statement of unhappiness was a true pleasure of
this production, a young man so infatuated with the woman he has found that he
overcomes nearly all of the obstacles placed before him.
But
where was the remarkable Fleming, fussing constantly over the possible failures of
her stigmatized daughter? Well, of course, she was incredibly moving in her
first act song of sorrow about when you first realize that love has broken away,
“Dividing Day,” perhaps a song I might have included, when I think back, in the
2018 collection of favorites. And she was quite charming, surely, in her
attempt to change the mind of Signor Naccarelli when he becomes outraged after
perceiving the 6-year difference between his son and Clara’s birth, in the
lovely seeking-out-solution song, “Let’s Walk,” a hard work to perform on a
stage based around a circle, but which is perhaps symbolic of their attempt to
circle their ideas to come to new perceptions.
Yet
we’d come to hear that glorious voice, this time even amplified by microphone.
Only in her absolutely amazing last song, “Fable,” did the renowned singer
finally truly shine. Here, in expressing all of her anger for her previous
failure and joy for her the sudden permission for her young daughter’s
marriage, she finally becomes a fierce force right out of Wagner, allowing that
all of her and her husband’s, as well as the Naccarelli’s family’s, notions of
marriage are nothing of importance.
A
bit like what Stephen Sondheim has often argued, love is a “fable,” but there
is no possibility to love if you can’t ignore that reality perceiving it as a
myth completely gone wrong. It is a brilliant “Try to Remember” moment when you
have to give up your own notions of your youth and try to imagine what your children
might find in their innocent loves, as well as a plea for forgiveness, a demand
for the correction of time and previous failures, a hope for a future in which
you yourself cannot be embraced. Finally the great diva was allowed to come
alive. And the light in the piazza showed through so brightly that it nearly blinded
us.
Los Angeles, October 15, 2019
Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (October 2019).
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