l-r Juan Chioran and Jeff Irving (photo by Emily Cooper)
and brings lovely voices with it.
by Dave Ross
@dmjross
Musicals are one of those strange art forms. When someone raises them in conversation, most minds leap to the ‘big’ musicals – Phantom of the Opera, CATS, Les Miserables, etc. From this stems a typical love/hate reaction, usually assuming that these musicals represent the only form of musical that exists. This is so far from the truth on many levels, and something that I too was reminded of when the lights came up on Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’s The Light in the Piazza at the Shaw Festival in Niagara on the Lake. The musical is small, delicate, intimate, and emotionally exhausting. In a word – excellent.
The Light in the Piazza tells the story of Clara (Jacqueline Thair) and her mother Margaret (Patty Jamieson). They travel to Florence together, and Clara attracts the eye of Fabrizio (Jeff Irving), and the two become completely besotted. However, there is something about Clara that makes her different from other girls, and Margaret struggles with how to tell Fabrizio’s family. The tension between her conscience and Clara and Fabrizio’s love creates the story, leaving us to wonder if it is better to have loved and lost…
