Singers soar above the flaws of ‘The Light in the Piazza'

Boston Globe

15-05-2025

If you can accept those tradeoffs, you'll be in a position to savor
In particular, you'll have a chance to experience the stunning vocal power of Sarah-Anne Martinez as Clara, a 26-year-old woman on vacation in Florence with her mother, Margaret (Emily Skinner), in the summer of 1953. The way Martinez deploys her crystalline soprano in the title song, just to choose one highlight of her performance, is shiver-inducing.
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For a reason we later learn — she suffered a brain injury in childhood that has affected her development in hard to predict ways — Clara tends to act on impulse. And when she falls in love with a 20-year-old Florentine named Fabrizio (Joshua Grosso), and he with her, Margaret faces a dilemma: Should she tell Fabrizio and his parents (William Michals and Rebecca Pitcher) the truth about Clara's condition? That, in Margaret's words, 'She is not quite what she seems'?
Music director Andrea Grody and her orchestra bring out the lushness of Guettel's score, which is often lovely and always heartfelt, but could do with more tonal variety.
As a matter of storytelling, 'The Light in the Piazza' takes a few short cuts, introducing what seem to be major conflicts, only to resolve them too tidily, with a song or a bit of dialogue, reflecting an impatience to get on to the next scene — and the next song. The result is a lack of necessary tension.
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The cast of "The Light in the Piazza."
Julieta Cervantes/Photo: �Julieta Cervantes
That's when the quality of the cast's singing proves vital. While Martinez is on a plane of virtuosity all her own, Skinner and Grosso also sing beautifully. In dialogue and in song, Skinner lets us feel the anguish of a mother caught in a bind between the possibility of happiness for her child and the possibility of emotional devastation for that child.
Grosso, who was in the cast of last year's '
The courtship between Clara and Fabrizio gets a bit too cutesy, but there is a genuine chemistry between Martinez and Grosso. It's vital that we believe the ardor of their love, even though they scarcely know each other, and we do.
Martinez delivers a wonderfully subtle performance, equally convincing in communicating Clara's condition and general innocence via bright, birdlike movements and expressions —Clara is somewhat reminiscent of Laura Wingfield in 'The Glass Menagerie' — then transitioning to an explosive key for a riveting meltdown scene.
To this observer, 'Piazza' leans in the direction of Italian stereotype in its depiction of Fabrizio's brother (Alexander Ross), and sister-in-law (Rebekah Rae Robles).
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Greco, The Huntington's artistic director, shows an adroit touch in handling 'Piazza''s shifts in mood and atmosphere. From the mist-shrouded opening scene, there's a gauzily cinematic quality to the production, suffused with a swoony romanticism. A film version of 'The Light in the Piazza," starring Olivia de Havilland, Yvette Mimieux, and George Hamilton (!) was released in 1962, shorn of the 'The.'
Scenic designer Andrew Boyce has created a movable set that is both visually arresting and versatile, swiftly establishing a sense of place as the musical moves from one locale to another.
We all have our own definitions of true love. The implicit argument of 'The Light in the Piazza' is that the most important quality is unstoppability.
THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA
Book by Craig Lucas. Music and lyrics by Adam Guettel. Based on the novella by Elizabeth Spencer. Directed by Loretta Greco. Presented by The Huntington. At the Huntington Theatre, Boston. Through June 15. Tickets start at $29. 617-266-0800,
Don Aucoin can be reached at