From the moment the overture begins for The Light in the Piazza, and you hear its rolling piano medleys, and see the gentle lighting fall just right on a perfect marble sculpture, you know just what this musical is going to be: lush, beautiful, and impossibly romantic.

Such is the appeal of The Light in the Piazza, making its stop at the Kennedy Center this month. Whether it be the exquisite paintings that drop from the ceiling, or the Italian opera-influenced score, it is a show with the mindset of seducing you with its foreign setting, just as its characters are similarly smitten with this “new old world.”

The work tells the story of Margaret, a Southern woman (Christine Andreas), and her impossibly innocent daughter, Clara (Elena Shaddow), who vacation together to Florence just as Margaret did years ago. Clara stumbles upon a local boy, Fabrizio (David Burnham), and the pair immediately fall for each other. Margaret is cautious, almost alarmingly so, until we discover the mysterious reasons behind her reticence.