It’s Weill for Opera North in 2025, and it’s delightful. With a stunning flow of musical gems, Love Life was composed in 1947 by Threepenny Opera/Mack the Knife man Kurt Weill with Alan Jay Lerner (of My Fair Lady, Gigi etc) whose forthright, funny, thought-provoking words drive the drama’s compelling narrative. A unique, scintillating entertainment results, full of interest and intriguing sparkle at every moment (well, almost) and on multiple fronts.
Paving the way for later musicals, Love Life’s ground-breaking format notably inspired the gigantic hit Cabaret. As historical events unfold, we witness how societal conditions and motivations shift, impacting hugely on personal lives and relationships. Philosophical and ethical questions arise about love, marriage and gender roles, wealth, dreams and aspirations, reality and illusion, about the price we pay for progress and about happiness itself. Plenty to chew on, then! But with humour and fine music thread through the show, not to mention hosts of mighty fine music hall acts, even heavier moments bob back up, light and buoyant.
The drama traces the relationship of Sam and Susan, a young American couple who fall in love in 1791 and start a family in small-town America, their outlooks and ambitions, as yet, simple, basic, sunny, naive and traditional. Subsequent scenes set the family in different periods of history as they travel forward through time – hardly ageing a jot – eventually reaching… 1948! Through 150+ years of progress and events we witness how these characters alter as the world changes dramatically around them and how their roles, attitudes and relationships are entirely reshaped. The relevance of all this is even greater, of course, in our twenty-first century world.

To keep the characters constant through time, simple black dresses and suits are worn throughout by the family of four and by the masses of highly accomplished cast and chorus members who people the stage, bringing each society vividly to life. With the lighting largely subdued and with no big sets or backdrops and few props (chairs, table, rug, dressing-table, glasses for drinks and magic-trick and vaudeville act accessories) the main focus is on the performers, the drama and the singing, and very firmly, too, on the fantastic Orchestra of Opera North, whose role is so crucial and deeply enjoyable.
The musicians, in tiers, are in full view, though not brightly lit, on raised frames across the back half of the stage, above which crane-like riggings artistically configure. The expressive, full-body-work-out style of James Holmes’s conducting works its magic as music of boundless charm and variety emerges, delicious treats that carry the drama’s mood and momentum while delighting, too, in their own right. The score’s superb orchestration gives time and space to instruments from all sections, allowing them to combine or separately enchant without getting in the way of one another. This lovingly crafted music strongly evokes America as hoedown, waltz, polka, boogie-woogie, jaunty syncopation and laid-back swing take us from rural life into industrialisation, through financial booms and crashes, American Dreams, votes for women and prohibition and on into a brave new world of radio and TV broadcasts.
Sam and Susan Cooper, the programme says, are played by Quirijin de Lang and Stephanie Corley, yet onstage, Sam and Susan Cooper are so real it’s impossible to believe anyone else is involved! Their expressive, nuanced acting couldn’t be better, the expressive, nuanced singing is super, ensuring the mood, meaning and momentum in the songs carry the drama forward just as they should. Susan moves convincingly from a domestic bliss of Green-Up Time into tub-thumping Suffragette battles in Women’s Club Blues and on to divorce in Is It Him Or Is It Me? Sam’s character develops convincingly, too, as his outlook progresses from contentment in Here I’ll Stay and My Kind of Night into a life of deceitful self-interest in the humorous, satirical I’m You’re Man while self-doubt later creeps poignantly into This Is The Life as he expresses the (dubious) joy of being a singleton again. Poignant, too, is the change in tone in the reprise of the couple’s duet I Remember It Well (a song recycled by Lerner far more memorably in Gigi).

For lively energy and super singing the entire cast is tremendous in bringing to life the drama’s characters and performing the engaging vaudeville acts that intersperse the enacted scenes. Dressed brighter, lighter and more glorious, and more colourfully lit, the vaudevillians perform in grand style and variety, their entertainments well and truly furthering the sentiment and impetus of the drama. The main thrust of the show comes in Love Song, sung and delivered brilliantly by Justin Hopkins as a wise, elegant hobo who weighs up the value and importance of love and romance on one hand against those of progress, finance and economics on the other. Highly pleasing harmonies, humour and special moments also come from a trio of endearing girls, sturdy quartets and octets of men and from a massed a capella madrigal group in purple and gold. All is simply and effectively choreographed while a scene involving two pink-clad, professional dancers is danced through its different styles as (top) layers of clothing come off.
Metaphorical and music-hall magic travel full circle from our initial experience of seeing Susan sawn in half and split in two as Sam levitates to mid-air and hangs ungrounded, to finally witnessing the couple climb to a high-wire rope in the hopes of achieving a balancing act that will allow them to meet each other half-way. And that’s a metaphor that’s as large as life!
Love Life’s relatable characters and themes have timeless relevance, and with such a fabulous score, thought-provoking cynicism, pleasing humour and enjoyable, stimulating variety, it’s surprising this superb musical drama isn’t more widely performed. Remarkably, until now, no cast had made a full recording of the show either, but this one has been recorded and will be broadcast for all ears on Radio 3’s Opera On Three on the evening of February 8th.
Eileen Caiger Gray