A committed performance of Lerner and Weill’s flop: Opera North’s Love Life reviewed

Once upon a time on Broadway, Igor Stravinsky composed a ballet for Billy Rose’s revue Seven Lively Arts. After the first night, Rose felt that Stravinsky’s efforts might benefit from the attention of Robert Russell Bennett – the king of Broadway orchestrators, who’d collaborated with Cole Porter and the Gershwins. ‘YOUR MUSIC GREAT SUCCESS,’ he telegrammed to Stravinsky. ‘COULD BE SENSATIONAL SUCCESS IF YOU WOULD AUTHORISE ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT RETOUCH ORCHESTRATION.’ Stravinsky wired straight back: ‘SATISFIED WITH GREAT SUCCESS.’

There were moments in this revival of the Lerner and Weill flop Love Life when I wondered whether Weill, too, might have profited from a Bennett makeover. Sacrilege! Kurt Weill was one of the very few Broadway composers (then or now) who insisted upon complete control of his own orchestral sound. And it’s true that Love Life is a gorgeous score, soaked in bittersweet melody and bruised romanticism. But you long for a little more sparkle, a touch more sonic pizzazz; anything, really, to buck the show’s long downward trajectory. Come on, boys, give us a smile!

It probably wouldn’t have made much difference, mind. Love Life is a musical about family life scripted by Alan Jay Lerner, who divorced seven times and whose best shows (My Fair Lady, Camelot, Gigi) contain not a single healthy, recognisable marriage. It’s an anti-capitalist critique of the American dream, an epic downer scored by Bertolt Brecht’s old co-writer at the precise moment – 1948 – of peak postwar optimism. Oh, and it’s framed as a flashback, narrated by a magician, and the hero and heroine can travel in time. Got that? Now prepare to be lectured. At one point Lerner trials an early draft of ‘Ah Yes, I Remember It Well’, and it dies on its feet.