Review: Renée Fleming brings radiant star power to a flickering 'Light in the Piazza'

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In L.A. Opera's staging of 'The Light in the Piazza,' Adam Guettell's Broadway musical centered on a poignant mother-child relationship, characters feel at an emotional remove.

Michael Ritchie, the artistic director of Center Theatre Group, has brought exciting theater programming, but why hasn’t he made Los Angeles a greater player in the national conversation?Floating about the stage in a perfumed cloud, Fleming upholds her goddess stature as an opera diva while portraying Margaret as a maternal lioness who can still command a room with her elegance and fire. The characterization isn’t as dramatically embodied as Clark’s.

Dove Cameron, a Disney star with fairy-princess appeal and a sweet if not all that piercing voice, plays Clara, Margaret’s 26-year-old daughter, who was developmentally stunted in childhood after being kicked in the head by a pony. Clara’s condition tends to be portrayed as a metaphor disguised as a medical impairment, but here the reality is undeniable.

Guettel’s score has a gorgeous sumptuousness, especially during those passages of cascading strings, but the lyric writing isn’t equal to the orchestral beauty. It comes almost as a relief when a performer in an emotional frenzy is released from Guettel’s lyrics into a wordless incantation of expressive sound.

Dove Cameron at Clara and Rob Houchen as Fabrizio in “The Light in the Piazza” in the 2019 London production

 

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