REVIEW : Lloyd Webber’s Musical Seduces

“Intimate” is not an adjective usually used in describing the musicals of Andrew Lloyd Webber, the man behind “Cats,” “Evita,” “Starlight Express” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”

But “Aspects of Love,” which opened Sunday at Broadway’s Broadhurst Theater, is a small Lloyd Webber musical that attempts to spin several personal, paper-thin stories into a rueful meditation on the wayward ways of love.

Despite designer Maria Bjornson’s stunning settings--including one breathtaking mountain panorama--”Aspects of Love” is really a chamber piece, a showcase for what is Lloyd Webber’s most unified and complex work to date.

The musical won’t be the audience pleaser that his past mega-hits have been. The tone is a little too rarefied, and several of its leading characters are decidedly unlikable. But the show represents an important step forward for the composer in terms of musical construction.

“Aspects of Love” is based on a short, snobby and sophisticated novel by David Garnett, a minor member of the Bloomsbury group. In the book, Garnett chronicled the couplings--and uncouplings--of various arty types in the south of France.

Lloyd Webber has updated the book a bit, setting his story between the years 1947 and 1964. The protagonist is Alex Dillingham, whose obsession with an older actress, Rose Vibert, lasts those 17 years. His fascination with her transcends Rose’s marriage to his uncle George, her flirtation with an Italian sculptress named Giulietta and even his infatuation with his niece, Jenny, the daughter of Rose and George. Got that?

There is enough bed-hopping and sexual longing to satisfy the most ardent soap opera fan, but the Lloyd Webber music elevates the story to something more. And Trevor Nunn’s fluid direction makes sure the show doesn’t linger too long on the more precious permutations of Garnett’s plot.

Musically, the show, which is sung through with almost no spoken dialogue, mirrors the various aspects of love. There are soaring melodies of budding romance like “Love Changes Everything” and “Seeing is Believing”; wistful, melancholy remembrances like “Other Pleasures” and “The First Man You Remember”; “Falling,” a quartet that neatly and quickly reveals the leading characters’ emotional states, and even an impassioned, terrifying plea for companionship, “Anything But Lonely.”

The lyrics for “Aspects of Love,” like those written for “The Phantom of the Opera,” are not as strong as the music. Co-lyricists Don Black and Charles Hart have done a workmanlike job, but they strike fire only once in a while.

Still, there are some ravishing moments in the show when everything comes together. The best occurs in the second act, when George fox-trots with his daughter Jenny to the haunting “The First Man You Remember.” It’s an achingly beautiful scene, a perfect blending of Lloyd Webber romanticism, the simplicity of the lyrics by Black and Hart, and Nunn’s cinematic direction.

The four leads are distinctive, able actors and fine singers too. Particularly adept is the boyish Michael Ball, whose booming tenor voice is just right for the overly eager Alex, who turns into a disillusioned middle-aged man before the curtain falls.

Ann Crumb gives a perfect predatory performance as the calculating Rose, and Kathleen Rowe McAllen is a sexy, wanton Giulietta. Best of all is Kevin Colson as the world-weary, pragmatic George, a man content with just “A Memory of a Happy Moment” and whose motto is “Life goes on, love goes free.”

There also is fine support from Walter Charles as Marcel, Rose’s loyal stage manager, and Danielle DuClos as the vulnerable Jenny. But in the end, the real star is Lloyd Webber, and his melodies are as seductive as ever.