“This is the sweetest living I have ever known”, so sings Sam Cooper during Love Life, his journey through over 150 years of American history in the company of his wife Susan and their two children. As Opera North brings a new production of this rarely-performed musical to the stage, we were keen to find out more about a work which set Broadway alight when it first opened in 1948.
Composed by Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner of My Fair Lady fame, Love Life was one of the first ‘concept musicals’. With its new approach to telling stories on the stage, it paved the way for many popular Broadway shows, including Cabaret, Follies and Chicago. As conductor James Holmes says, “the story of a marriage might sound ordinary, but this is the tale of a marriage played out over 157 years.”
Not only that, but each scene or ‘sketch’ of family life is followed by a cabaret-style ‘act’ which comments on the action which has gone before. James continues: “This is very much an entertainment show. Its subtitle is ‘a vaudeville’ and vaudeville was one of the most democratic of art-forms. It was an art-form for the people, encompassing singing, dancing but also poetry. Anyone could get up and perform whatever they liked.”
While Sam and Susan do not age, taking this long view of history means that we see how a changing society brings different pressures to bear on a relationship. Out of the two, Susan experiences the more obviously seismic journey, going from being a happy homemaker at the start of the piece to chafing at the restrictions of being a wife and mother later in the musical. Stephanie Corley, who sings Susan, chooses the final scene as her favourite: “Susan gets to live out this fantasy of meeting Mr. Right and she gets to do a really big number. Even within that number, there’s a huge journey for her. And it’s fantastic!”
For Sam, the journey may be more subtle, but he is certainly not immune to change as he looks to embrace the opportunities offered by an increasingly industrialised workplace. “Sam feels that he’s redundant at certain points,” explains Quirijn de Lang who will be taking on the role in this production. “This musical was written in 1948 and there’s definitely a sense that when men returned from the War and discovered women doing roles that were traditionally theirs really well, they did feel redundant. I think Sam feels like he has to go along with what society wants him to be. I think he would really like to stay at home with his family, but he has to go out and do the thing capitalism needs him to do. As a result, his journey is not as freeing as Susan’s.”
The times certainly take their toll as Sam leaves his family and ends up living in a hotel room where he sings ‘This is the Life’, a heartbreakingly upbeat number about the ‘pleasures’ of living alone.
Quite apart from the storytelling aspect, one of the most incredible aspects of Love Life is Weill’s ability to bring together a variety of musical styles in one piece, moving from polkas and waltzes at the outset, through the advent of swing, to the boogie-woogie number which Susan sings towards the end. “Weill had a knack for finding musical images to match thoughts in quite a ground-breaking way,” James Holmes explains. “It’s an absolutely wonderful score and it has so much great music in it. It is a compendium of America’s musical idioms and a homage to the country Weill loved.”
Surprisingly, the work has never received a definitive recording. This is something Opera North is looking to put right in collaboration with the Kurt Weill Foundation during the three performances at Leeds Grand Theatre. These take place on Thursday 16, Friday 17 and Saturday 18 January 2025 and will feature the Orchestra of Opera North on the stage rather than in the pit. It’s an unmissable opportunity to see a show which the New York Daily Mirror called “a song and dance show with great heart.”
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Main image: Stephanie Corley and Quirijn de Lang in Kiss Me, Kate © Tristram Kenton
