The Light in the Piazza (2005 Original Broadway Cast)
List Price:
Our Price: $14.99
You Save: $4.99 (25%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $5.96 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more new music releases
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Music CD Cover
Composer: Adam GuettelPerformer: Victoria Clark
Performer: Kelli O'Hara
Performer: Matthew Morrison
Performer: Sarah Uriarte Berry
Performer: Mark Harelik
Edition: Music CD
Format: Cast Recording
CD Release Date: 2005-05-24
Music Label: Nonesuch
Soundtracks:
- Overture
- Statues and Stories
- The Beauty Is
- Il Mondo Era Vuoto
- American Dancing
- Passeggiata
- The Joy You Feel
- Dividing Day
- Hysteria
- Say It Somehow
- Aiutami
- The Light in the Piazza
- Octet
- The Beauty Is (Reprise)
- Let's Walk
- Clara's Interlude
- Love to Me
- Fable
Free Music Notes for The Light in the Piazza (2005 Original Broadway Cast)
Free Music Review: Unusual
Hit: 4 Stars
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.
The Light in the Piazza (2005 Original Broadway Cast) Poster
Like a shimmering pearl, The Light in the Piazza emerged from a sea of revivals, rehashings, and movie adaptations to secure 11 2005 Tony nominations, including Best Musical. Based on an Elizabeth Spencer novella (which was also made into a 1962 film), it follows a mother, Margaret (Victoria Clark), and her daughter, Clara (Kelli O'Hara), as they take a vacation to Italy. There, Clara and a young Italian (Matthew Morrison) fall in love, but Margaret is determined to keep them apart.The Light in the Piazza doesn't fit the model of most Broadway scores, with a splashy opener here, a swing number there, then the big ballad. The score is more of a unified whole, sometimes jarring, sometimes following the patterns of speech, and sometimes unfolding in glorious sheens of sound. (Heck, some of it's even in Italian!) In that sense, it's similar to another unconventional American musical set in Italy, Stephen Sondheim's Passion, which is more chamber opera than musical, and composer-lyricist Adam Guettel (song of Mary Rodgers, grandson of Richard Rodgers) seems the most likely heir apparent to Sondheim in the current generation of musical theater creators. O'Hara's voice soars in the score's most beautiful moments ("Say It Somehow," the title song), but Clark enjoys two exquisitely lyrical moments with "Dividing Day" and "Let's Walk." She was one of the show's six Tony winners (for Leading Actress), along with Guettel's score and the orchestrations, scenice design, lighting, and costumes, while O'Hara (for Featured Actress), Morrison, Craig Lucas's book, and Bartlett Sher's direction were also nominated. --David Horiuchi
The Light in the Piazza is arguably one of the most highly anticipated theatrical events of the decade for serious Broadway theatergoers. The Los Angeles Times has already declared its creator, Nonesuch artist Adam Guettel, "a composer for the new century," on the strength of his two Off-Broadway productions, the 1996 Obie-Award winning "folk musical" Floyd Collins and the 1998 song cycle, Myths and Hymns, TIME has described him as "a startlingly original songwriter." Few theatrical composers have been watched as closely as Guettel, and few musicals in the course of their development have generated so much substantial press or been praised so highly on the road as The Light in the Piazza. Both the New Yorker and The New York Times magazine devoted in-depth coverage to the evolution of Guettel's sophisticated, deeply moving score. New Yorker critic John Lahr decided,"Guettel's kind of talent cannot be denied. He shouldn't change for Broadway; Broadway, if it is to survive as a creative theatrical force, should change for him."
Country Music CDs
Music Genres
Top music charts in The Ten-- And Only Ten!-- Greatest Broadway Musicals
Weill: Lady in the Dark / Ris? Stevens, Adolph Green, Lehman Engel, Danny KayeRelease date: 1997-06-03; Music CD
Best price: $52.04
The Light in the Piazza (2005 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2005-05-24; Music CD
Best price: $8.95
Price in other shops:
My Fair LadyHARRISON,REX; Release date: 1998-12-08; DVD
Best price: $8.99
Price in other shops:
Carousel (50th Anniversary Edition)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2006-11-07; DVD
Best price: $9.46
Price in other shops:
CabaretWarner Brothers; Release date: 2003-08-19; DVD
Best price: $5.96
Price in other shops:
The Sound of Music (Two-Disc 40th Anniversary Special Edition)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2005-11-15; DVD
Best price: $14.63
Price in other shops:
Fiddler on the Roof (2-Disc Collector's Edition)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2007-01-23; DVD
Best price: $16.99
Price in other shops:
Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Broadway) (Snap Case)Release date: 2004-04-20; DVD
Best price: $14.95
Price in other shops:
Rodgers & Hammerstein's South PacificRelease date: 2001-08-28; DVD
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops:
GypsyWarner Brothers; Release date: 2000-05-02; DVD
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops:
Top Rated Albums
Avenue Q (2003 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2003-10-07; Music CD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2007-06-05; Music CD
Best price: $10.67
Price in other shops:
The Light in the Piazzaby Craig Lucas, Adam Guettel
Theatre Communications Group; Published: 2007-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.98
Price in other shops:
Monty Python's Spamalot (2005 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2005-05-03; Music CD
Best price: $9.99
Price in other shops:
Little Women The Musical (2005 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2005-05-03; Music CD
Best price: $10.45
Price in other shops:
Grey Gardens - The MusicalRelease date: 2006-08-22; Music CD
Best price: $11.45
Price in other shops:
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2005-05-10; Music CD
Best price: $11.79
Price in other shops:
The Drowsy Chaperone (2006 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2006-06-06; Music CD
Best price: $10.73
Price in other shops:
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (2005 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2005-05-31; Music CD
Best price: $12.97
Price in other shops:
Spring Awakening (2006 Original Broadway Cast)Release date: 2006-12-12; Music CD
Best price: $7.60
Price in other shops: