Sunday, April 13, 2014

Album Review: THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (ORIGINAL BROADWAY CAST RECORDING)


It’s here, ladies and gentleman: Jason Robert Brown’s return to Broadway. And it just so happens that he’s provided us with the most intensely romantic score since Adam Guettel’s The Light in the Piazza.

There’s a difference here, though. While Piazza gently floated on the wind with a classical sensibility infused with piano, strings, and harp that touched us in the heart, The Bridges of Madison County has a musical approach that’s more muscular… it virtually punches us in the gut. It reflects a type of love unlike the innocence of Fabrizio and Clara, two naïve young people from two different worlds. The romance between Francesca Johnson and Robert Kincaid is one of forbidden love, a deep and complex affair that oozes with palpable danger and sexuality. And Jason Robert Brown’s work reflects that in a way that few other composers today could achieve. If Brown hadn’t written the brilliant score for Parade, I’d say Bridges is his most significant contribution to musical theatre to date.