I'm back from seeing LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, which I enjoyed mostly for its beautiful scenery, fluid staging, wonderful costume, and wonderful cast.
I just checked the CD and they've exactly doubled the string section: 12 violins and five celli on CD and 6 violins and 2 celli in the theatre. They were wrong to increase the strings; the chamber sound of the pitorchestra is just perfect, perhaps too much piano noodling and too many timpani/cymbal crashes for such a delicate piece but siuch is the nature of the power ballad these days.
I enjoyed the score much more in performance than as a listening experience; now that I've seen the piece, I think now I'll enjoy the recording more, and there are several wonderful numbers . I think my favorite, and the best scored, is "Dividing Day."
I liked the cast, even my bete noir Miss Clark, who seems to be always on the verge of a grandiose "I'm a star now" performance, although in Act Two she has a marvelous line that moved me greatly. A person behind me said rather loudly at one point "she sounds like Katharine Hepburn," with which I cannot totally disagree; she's channeling several grandes dames. The other principals - Patti Cohenour, Mark Harelik, Matthew Morrison, Sarah Uriarte Berry, Michael Barresse, and Kelli O'Hara - all have wonderful moments, as does my friend Beau Gravitte in a basically unsympathetic role.
And it is a stunning production.