KURT Weill interrupted Alan Jay Lerner’s partnership with Frederick Loewe in 1948 when he needed book and lyrics for Love Life, which turned out to be his penultimate completed work for the musical theatre.
It was a shrewd move. Their joint decision to create a ‘vaudeville’ on the topic of married life was soundly rooted in their own experience, Weill having divorced and remarried Lotte Lenya, with Lerner at that time enjoying his second marriage (with six more to come).
With Love Life you get two for the price of one. On the one hand,there is a series of sketches, at roughly 30-year intervals from 1791 to 1948, charting the vagaries of a typical American marriage, with a couple and their two children weathering a changing society’s various pressures.
Interwoven with these are essentially music hall acts, which have varying degrees of relevance to the main narrative. This division only breaks down in the finale. Here Sam and Susan the central couple, having realised that their marriage is on the rocks, are lured into an Illusion Minstrel Show where they are encouraged to decide that they are no better apart than together. We leave them at opposite ends of a high wire, about to re-embark on the balancing act of marriage.
Matthew Eberhardt’s avowed mission as director was to make the distinction between these two strands abundantly clear. He succeeded, with considerable help from Zahra Mansouri’s designs. She kept the ageless family foursome in black – they were immune from changing fashions – while vivid colour was reserved for the variety acts.
In what was technically a semi-staged production, with the orchestra on a raised platform upstage, there were no fixed props, only movable furniture, with one intriguing exception. Overhead was an assemblage of geometrical trusses, the bare bones of lighting rigs, which grew more elaborate as the industrial and technological ages progressed, representing added complications for the couple while distilling the growing New York skyline.
What is absolutely stunning about this piece is Weill’s chameleon ability to adapt to the multiplicity of styles prevalent in America and elsewhere: jazz, blues, soft shoe shuffle, big band, barbershop, madrigal, not to mention standard operetta and operatic procedures.
In all of these James Holmes’s sense of style and command of the orchestra were vital to the success of the whole enterprise. Rhythms were everywhere crisp and alive, the players’ obvious enthusiasm inspiring the singers at every turn.
Quirijn de Lang and Stephanie Corley were well contrasted as the central couple, he more and more focused on bringing home the bacon and hustling for business, while she agonised over fitting her domestic role into the early throes of women’s lib.
His forthright baritone was especially witty in I’m Your Man, attempting to be all things to all men. Her soprano was at its most tender in Is It Him Or Is It Me?’, which summarised the difficulties in their relationship after they had decided on divorce. Louie Stow and Tilly Baker were their impeccable children.
A broad spread of roles once again revealed the versatility of the Opera North chorus, not least as a male octet in Progress and as a taut mixed-voice madrigal group in Ho, Billy O!. Among the invitees, Themba Mvula was a spirited magician at the start and a wily MC in the closing minstrel show.
Justin Hopkins made a warmly avuncular Hobo, and there was sparkling bonhomie from the male quartet in a wry Economics and in Susan’s Dream. The Three Tots earn a mention for the unfettered joy of their song-and-dance routine.
Indeed, the choreographer Will Tuckett and his assistant Daisy West played an outstanding role, given that the cast included only two professional dancers. They were Holly Saw and Max Westwell, who delivered a poignant Divorce Ballet.
Finally, a word for Christine Jane Chibnall, returning as dramaturg here after retiring in the autumn after more than 40 years with the company, mainly as director of planning. Her vision and determination have not often received the appreciation they deserve.
The only disappointment of this show was that it received only two performances. It will surely be revived and soon. No-one should miss it.
Review by Martin Dreyer
