Did anyone else watch it on PBS this evening…harkening back to the days when PBS actually did something valuable via Live from Lincoln Center…where many of us got our most sustained initial exposure to opera?

My father had seen it in New York a month ago (along with Awake and Sing! which features Six Feet Under’s Lauren Ambrose – he said she was very good, amid all the talkiness of 1930’s agitprop!) – and raved. I’d read about when the show first opened in Chicago several years ago and had thought – well, if I ever go to the theater again, this is one I’d like to see.

What a moving, heartbreaking piece. Catholic me can’t help hearing spiritual echoes  – of course, set a play in Italy, it’s hard to avoid. But all the stories about love found and lost that wove through the piece seemed to find their answer, such as it is, in all of its ambiguity, in the setting of a church, a church where the light that illuminates the piazza, the light that Clara sees and hopes for, penetrates all the pain, tragedy and loss and simply…shines. Accepted, accepting, hopeful.

I was glad to see that a national tour of the show begins in August – hmmm…Cleveland and Cincinnati are close enough, but Indy would be better…we’ll see!