`THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA' SHINES BRIGHTLY INDEED.

Byline: Evan Henerson Theater Critic

That sage, if well-worn, adage about setting free something you love must have some value, that a much-ballyhooed Broadway musical has been crafted around the sentiment.

This is by no means meant to be reductive. You won't soon encounter a more swoon-worthy packaging for a ``let your child live her own life, damn it!'' tale than Craig Lucas and Adam Guettel's ``The Light in the Piazza.'' Nor, for that matter, is there a more heartbreaking pair of messengers than Christine Andreas and Elena Shaddow playing a mother and daughter, each with much to learn while vacationing in 1953 Florence.

Italy is brought sumptuously to life at the Ahmanson Theatre, where ``Piazza's'' national tour -- directed by Bartlett Sher -- is parked through Dec. 10. Indeed, the efforts of ``Piazza'' set designer Michael Yeargan, costumer Catherine Zuber and, especially, lighting designer Christopher Akerlind should single-handedly prompt a flurry of bookings. to Italy.

Not the usual musical

Adapted from Elizabeth Spencer's novel, ``Piazza'' is a small musical with a big voice and some decidedly nonmusical conventions and behaviors. Fabrizio Naccarelli, the 20-year-old Florentine clothier -- whose smitten-at-first-sight ardor is matched by our young heroine's -- acts and sings like he has just waltzed out of a Puccini opera.

Impassioned Fabrizio is hardly the only factor that sometimes makes ``Piazza'' seem closer to opera than to musical theater. We have a tale daring enough to leave extended stretches of dialogue (spoken and sung) in untranslated Italian, yet secure in the conviction that audiences will understand all that they have to. Who among us -- Lucas and Guettel suggest -- doesn't know about love?

Amore -- her child's or her own -- is actually the furthest thing from Margaret Johnson's thoughts when she takes her daughter, Clara, abroad. Clara (played by Shaddow) is 26 but has a ``gee whiz!'' sense of wonderment that suggests there's more going on with her, which there ultimately is. Margaret (Andreas) is protective, yes, but the romantic forces of bella Italia have some mighty powerful mojo.

And neither mother nor daughter is prepared for the amorous wallop of a Fabrizio, or the orchestrations of the extended Naccarellis.

The very city of Florence -- the weather, even -- conspire to aid the love-struck Clara and Fabrizio. The same winds that stir the leaves in the first piazza visited by the Johnsons sweep Clara's hat skyward and down into the hands of Fabrizio (David Burnham), who has been following her. This occurs somewhere near the climax of a song titled ``Statues and Stories'' and, from then on, Clara and Fabrizio are goners.

Wait ... there's more

The thorny secret involves Clara, but the regret and perspective are Margaret's. Andreas smoothly counterbalances Shaddow's giddiness. Her transformation from mother hen to understanding advocate is a gradual one. Her curtain-closing plea, ``Love if you can, oh my Clara, love if you can, and be loved,'' is enough to open floodgates for those in the audience.

Ditto Shaddow's performance. All of Clara's hopefulness, self-doubt and brokenness are written on the actress' lovely wounded face.

Guettel, the grandson of composer Richard Rodgers, clearly has an equally powerful, albeit stylistically different, strain of music in his DNA. ``Piazza's'' sweeping, verseless melodies ideally meet the requirements of this tale.

Guettel's score took the 2005 Tony Award, and, as exciting as it will be to see what he produces next, audiences would do well to proceed, posthaste, to the ``Piazza.'' The journey is well worth it.

Evan Henerson [phone]

[e-mail]

THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA - Three and one half stars

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday; through Dec. 10.

Tickets: $25 to $100. [phone].

In a nutshell: Melodious, heartbreaking and romantic down to its bone marrow.

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Photo:

David Burnham's Italian clothier and Elena Shaddow's American tourist fall in love quickly and completely in the romantic city of Florence in ``The Light in the Piazza,'' at the Ahmanson Theatre.