New Musical in Manhattan

The Firebrand of Florence (music by Kurt Weill; book by Edwin Justus Mayer & Ira Gershwin; produced by Max Gordon) sets to music Edwin Justus Mayer's 20-year-old comedy about Benvenuto Cellini, The Firebrand. Though the music itself proves an asset, it has to consort with a yarn that time has made paunchy and libretto-writing made puerile. The brawling mankiller, the dashing lady-killer, the impudent, artistic scapegallows Benvenuto (Earl Wrightson) becomes just another musicomedy swashbuckler; the plot and gags are such spinach that the whole thing turns out to be a musical poached eggs Florentine.

More an operetta than a musicomedy in treatment, The Firebrand of Florence largely dispenses with dance routines, specialty numbers, personalities (only nimble Melville Cooper as the nitwitted Duke of Florence makes himself felt).

But the show does boast opulent operatic trappings and Composer Weill's (Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus) full-bodied, romantically tuneful score. But even the tunes, pleasant as they are, suffer from a certain sameness.

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