Journey to Florence in Huntington’s luminous ‘Piazza’

By Rich Fahey

BOSTON – When The Huntington’s luminous production of “The Light in the Piazza” is running on all cylinders, you can almost feel the Tuscan sun and believe you’ve been transplanted back to the summer of 1953.

Loretta Greco, the company’s artistic director, gave herself a tough assignment for her first direction of a musical, after years of concentrating on new work. In an interview, she said she was “shaking in my boots every day.”

She needn’t have worried. Greco’s casting is pitch-perfect and she has assembled a team of designers determined to put you squarely in one of the many romantic spaces in the city of Florence. It is lovely to see, to hear, and to feel.

“The Light in the Piazza,” based on the novel by Elizabeth Spencer with book by BU grad Craig Lucas and music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, won six Tony Awards in 2006. “Piazza” is not often revived; the only other professional production I can recall in Greater Boston was by SpeakEasy Stage Company in 2008 that starred Amelia Broome and Erica Spyres.

In this production, Margaret Johnson (Emily Skinner) is a wealthy woman from the American South who is spending a summer in Florence with her daughter Clara (Sarah-Anne Martinez), 26. Clara is developmentally disabled due to a childhood accident.

After a chance encounter, Clara falls in love with a young Italian man named Fabrizio Naccarelli  (Joshua Grosso) and Margaret will face a reckoning: What can or should she do to stop what she feels may be an unhappy disaster, or should Clara’s happiness come first, whatever the cost?

And where does her own future lie, given regrets in her own life? She seems irretrievably disconnected from husband Roy (Rob Richardson) back home.

The voices are simply sublime in a lush, romantic score that will test them at every turn; Guettel’s work is classical and operatic, and timid voices need not apply. Martinez’s soaring soprano sets the standard for all to follow; happily, Grosso and Skinner are right there with her. Grosso, an alum of last season’s “Gatsby” at ART, oozes charm with his eager-to-please broken English, and Martinez responds in kind, giving their ardor the ring of truth.

Guettel resists the temptation to translate every verse of his score; many of the lyrics are in Italian or broken English, as many of the characters are fluent only in Italian.

And while Clara and Fabrizio seem certain about where their relationship is heading, there is still the matter of his family: Signor Naccarelli (William Michals) and his wife (Rebcca Pitcher), brother Giuseppe (Alexander Ross) and wife Franca (Rebekah Rae Robles).

They are charmed by Clara but Margaret’s dilemma is apparent: Should she tell them about her condition?

As Clara, Martinez captures the child-like side of the woman while also embracing her new-found sense of independence when she finds love. Skinner’s Margaret must contend with a mother’s desire to protect a daughter from the world while also realizing that someday she would no longer be around to protect her, and what would that mean?

“The Light in the Piazza” is the type of show that has long been squarely in the wheelhouse of The Huntington, a company that — no matter who the current artistic director happens to be — pays attention to detail, with Broadway-quality production values from top to bottom. Christopher Akerlind’s delightfully nuanced lighting evokes the Tuscan summer; Andrew Boyce’s scenic design uses a wide variety of moving pieces of statuary and other art to establish a sense of place.

Music director Andrea Grody oversees a 12-piece orchestra that gives full voice to Guettel’s vision and complements the lovely vocal instruments.

In program notes, Greco described the importance of the show’s setting on a personal basis. “The story is set in Italy where my people come from: a place where there is no need to apologize for big emotions, where family is king, and where risk is inextricably connected to everything worthwhile.”

The Huntington’s production of “The Light in the Piazza.” Directed by Loretta Greco. Book by Craig Lucas. Music and lyrics by Adam Guettel.. At the Huntington Theatre through June 15.   huntingtontheatre.org.