With all the lush romanticism going on over at Shakespeare Theater’s Harman Center, you’d think it were Valentine’s Day, not the Christmas season.

Director Rebecca Bayla Taichman’s production of Twelfth Night is one big over-the-top ode to love, and the result is delightful rather than saccharine. The set’s backdrop is all dramatic, supersized roses, and petals cascade from the ceiling each time a character becomes lovestruck (an effect that initially seems schmaltzy, but is later done with enough tongue-in-cheek zest to woo any cynic). The mood is set through Miranda Hoffman’s glorious costumes as well, with grief-struck Olivia’s attendants shifting from black gowns to brilliant red in the second act, and the newly-smitten mourner herself donning a different bright colored dress in each subsequent scene.

Taichman has not only color to play with as an expressive tool; music weaves throughout this production, from melancholy little ballads from the court’s fool (the masterful Floyd King) and frequent, lovely accompaniment coming from a soprano in the rafters (Stacey Cabaj). It’s perhaps not surprising; after all, this is the work which opens famously with the ever-quotable “If music be the food of love, play on!”, uttered by a distraught, enamored Orsino (Christopher Innvar).