Aspects of Love

"Love Changes Everything"

One of Andrew Lloyd Webber's lesser known musicals. Based on a novella of the same title by David Garnett, it concerns Alex Dillingham, a young English soldier traveling through France. He meets Rose Vibert, a flighty, nymphomaniacal French actress. There's also Alex's uncle George and his lover, Giulietta Trapani, an Italian (presumably Venetian) sculptress. The show details the romantic entanglements and relationships between these people over a period of several years, later including Jenny, George and Rose's daughter.

It has received mixed reactions since its inception. It's certainly not what the public was used to compared to Lloyd Webber's other big musicals at the time, such as Cats, Starlight Express and The Phantom of the Opera. It relies more on the substance of the characters and is more reserved, and possibly more sophisticated, than his bigger hits of The Eighties.

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Tropes used in Aspects of Love include:

• Adaptation Distillation
• All Musicals Are Adaptations
• Anything That Moves: Basically every single character (other than Jenny).
• Bilingual Bonus: Rose, being French, occasionally sings in French. Also the Musical Pastiche "Parlez-Vous Francais?" which plays in the cafe during Rose and Alex's first date.
• Book Ends "Love Changes Everything" begins and ends the show.
• Breakaway Pop Hit: "Love Changes Everything" was a big hit for Michael Ball in the UK, to the extent that it almost overshadows the rest of the show.
• Cool Old Guy: George, maybe not so much cool as charming. Then again, the show does start out in the '40s.
• Daddy's Girl: Jenny.
• Doting Parent: George. He even gets a song about it.
• Girl-On-Girl Is Hot: How Rose and Giulietta get over their jealousy of each other.
• How We Got Here
• It Runs in The Family: Jenny has her mother's taste for older men. And Alex and George both have the same two women (Rose and Giulietta) at different points.
• "I Want" Song: "There Is More To Love". Also Giulietta's only major number.
• Jail Bait Wait: The end of the show gives hints as to what will happen to Alex and Jenny once she's of age.
• Kissing Cousins: Alex and Jenny. It's never really mentioned which really bothers George, Rose, and eventually Alex more: the incest or the fact that she's jail bait.
  • Actually it's not incest, at least not genetically. Alex and George are not blood relations; George was married to Alex's aunt. George's problem with the relationship is mostly that Jenny is still a kid in his eyes.
• Leitmotif: Runs on this.
• Like Father, Like Son: Alex and George are both interested in Rose.
  • Gender-flipped example: in separate acts, Rose and Jenny both make a dramatic entrance wearing a dress that belonged to George's dead first wife. The first time, he almost has a heart attack. The second, he does some play-flirting with his daughter.
• Likes Older Women: When Alex and Rose first meet, he's 17, she 25.
• Love Dodecahedron: The Musical.
• May-December Romance: Basically every possible couple except Alex/Giullieta involves this.
• Meaningful Funeral: George insists on a giant party with a feast and dancing after he is dead.
• Not Afraid to Die: George.
• Parental Abandonment: Alex's are complete non-entities, to the point that we don't even know why they never appear.
  • It's clearer in the book; both of Alex's parents are wrong.
• Parental Substitute: George to Alex at the very start, even though the rest of the musical proves his advice to be wrong.
  • Your mileage may vary on this. George advises Alex NOT to allow love to overcome his common sense. If Alex had listen to him he would not have shot Rose and had to spend years away from his only family, and if he'd not done that he would have probably seen Jenny grow up and not have been attracted to her.
• Real Life Writes the Plot / Author Appeal: David Garnett (author of the novel) married his male ex-lover's daughter, whose christening he attended.
• Second Love: Rose to George.
• Show Within a Show: Rose is an actress. After the prologue, the musical begins with her starring in the final scene of Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder, and Act II begins with her in Ivan Turganev's A Month in the Country. The family also attends a circus in act II.
• Silly Love Songs: The Musical.
• Soap Opera: The Musical.
• Take a Third Option
• Time Skip: of 12 years, during the Intermission.
• To Absent Friends
• What Could Have Been: Sean Connery was planned to originate the role of George, but dropped out of rehearsals because (though he was taking lessons) he didn't think he could sing well enough for it.
  • Actually it wasn't Sean Connery; it was Roger Moore, another James Bond.