SYNOPSIS

Venice, 1530. Rosina and Marta arrive in the city so Rosina can work as a painter. They have little money and live in a corner of a church, which they also use as a studio. Marta submits Rosina’s work to the painters’ guild, but the guild rejects her because she is a woman and a foreigner. Marta takes odd jobs to support them, but they often have no food or paint.

Marcello finds the painting Rosina submitted to the guild. He is drawn to its rough but unusual style and its strange white color. He meets Marta and gives her a set of paints for Rosina.

Rosina visits Marcello’s studio. Marcello is the son of the famous painter Pietro di Natale, but he has refused all commissions since his father’s death. He asks Rosina about the white paint in her work. She calls it “Silver White,” made from sand and glass. Marcello asks her to paint portraits for him and let him sign them. Rosina refuses because her own name would not appear on the paintings.

Back at the church, Rosina remembers the day she met Marta. Marta was selling flowers. Rosina made her smile and sketched her. They became friends. Rosina later told her father that she had made a friend and drawn her. Her father did not want his daughter to paint. He banned her from his studio and told her to marry. Rosina and Marta then left for Venice to follow their dreams.

Rosina feels guilty that Marta must work so hard and says she will find a job. Marta wants her to keep painting. Rosina returns to Marcello and accepts his offer.

Her first job is a portrait of a nobleman. She paints his profile as he smiles at his family and uses the colors she chooses. Marcello says that a nobleman should face forward and be painted with expensive pigments. He still signs the finished work with his own name. The nobleman likes the way Rosina has shown his expression. Marta, however, is upset that Rosina is losing her name as an artist. Rosina also decides to stop and return the money.

Marcello then receives a commission from a baron who has never shown his face in public. He sees it as a chance to make his own name famous and asks Rosina to work with him once more. She agrees.

A young pickpocket named Jacopo arrives in Venice. He has been hired to pose as the baron. Rosina finds it funny that a ghost painter is painting a stand-in for the baron, but she treats Jacopo kindly. He keeps trying to steal things, but he is also a poor boy who is grateful for any food he receives.

Rosina watches Jacopo sleep and sketches him in a small book. She begins to cough and falls asleep. Marcello finds blood on her handkerchief.

As the portrait nears completion, Marcello promises that Rosina will one day be able to sign her own work. However, when she shows paintings under her own name, people call her an imitator of Marcello. She begins to hallucinate that the world is collapsing around her. Her health gets worse, and Marcello warns that she is showing the severe hallucinations sometimes seen among painters.

Marta feels that Rosina no longer needs her. She asks Rosina to leave Venice with her after they finish the baron’s portrait, but Rosina decides to stay.

A letter arrives from the baron. He orders Marcello to hand over both the portrait and Jacopo, then forget everything about the job. Marta comes to the studio looking for Jacopo. Marcello tells her that Jacopo is gone. Marta leaves in anger.

Fumes from the paint fill the studio, and a spark starts a fire. Marcello loses consciousness. Rosina enters the studio and pulls him outside. She then goes back to save her paintings. She manages to carry out a few works, but the paint on the face in the baron’s portrait runs and destroys it. Rosina dies in the fire.

Marta tells Marcello that the world believes he died, but Rosina is the one who is dead. She says he has taken even her death from her. Marcello says that he also died that day. His paintings became more famous after news of his death, so he must now remain hidden and live as a dead man.

Marta covers the damaged face in the baron’s portrait with Silver White. She writes Rosina’s name on the back of the canvas.

Florence, 2020. Art conservator Viola plans to leave her profession. Her old friend Nicola, an art dealer, brings her a damaged painting. He believes it is The Portrait of the Baron, a lost work by the 16th-century painter Marcello di Natale.

Viola doubts the claim. She then finds the famous Silver White pigment and a hidden signature under infrared light. She agrees to restore one final painting.

The work has been covered with rough paint, and the name “Rosina” appears on the back of the canvas. Viola suspects that Marcello may not be the true artist. Nicola says the Natale Society has already confirmed the painting as genuine and plans to announce its discovery. He argues that someone else may have added the name. Viola replies that paint is an artist’s fingerprint and that the same materials used in the overpainting also appear in the original work.

Viola asks Nicola to delay the announcement and travels to Venice. She visits Rosina’s old studio and Marcello’s workshop. The surviving sketches and other evidence reveal the true artist and the history of the painting.

Viola and Nicola finally announce that the work is titled Portrait of a Boy and that its artist is Rosina.


REVIEW

It had been a long time since I had seen a musical planned with such care, even in its smallest details.

In 1530, Rosina moves to the Republic of Venice. She is a talented painter, but her work cannot be recognized under her own name because she is a woman and a foreigner. Her friend and assistant Marta takes odd jobs to pay for food, art supplies, and paint, but they still cannot make a living. Rosina eventually becomes a ghost painter for Marcello, the heir to a famous family of artists.

Marta dislikes seeing Rosina paint under someone else’s name, but they have no other way to earn money in Venice. What angers her even more is Marcello’s poor skill as a painter. From birth, he has had the privilege of signing paintings produced by his pupils and assistants and receiving credit for them. However, the head of a workshop is still expected to complete the important parts of a painting, and Marcello lacks even that level of skill. Since his father’s death, he has refused every new commission because he is afraid that the truth will be exposed.

Once Rosina begins painting for him, Marcello receives praise for his changed style and starts to gain recognition again. A commission to paint a baron who never reveals his identity is presented as Marcello’s chance to make his own name famous. The musical does not explain why the baron is so important, but he is shown as a powerful figure who keeps his face hidden.

The problem is that Jacopo, the stand-in brought in to pose for the baron, is a very young and beautiful boy. For the portrait to pass as an image of the baron, the two would need to be similar in age and build. This suggests that the baron is also quite young. The musical does not explain how such a young baron can keep his identity completely hidden while exercising such dark influence. Later, a letter orders Marcello to hand over both the painting and Jacopo, suggesting that the baron may intend to get rid of the boy. He may be a young nobleman backed by the inherited power of his family, but there is not enough information to support this reading, leaving some tension within the premise.

Marta grew up in an orphanage and had no one to rely on until Rosina became her friend. She follows Rosina to Venice and devotes herself to helping her become known as a painter. Later, Marta asks Rosina to leave Marcello’s workshop and move with her to Florence. She believes Rosina will no longer be dismissed as an imitator there. Marta will support them by working as a maid while Rosina looks for another opportunity. She is a strong and determined person who gives everything for the only person who first approached her as a friend—or perhaps for the meaning that supporting Rosina has given her own life.

Jacopo is a beautiful young pickpocket who is caught trying to steal the baron’s bag and is forced to pose for the portrait. On his way to Venice, he sees the sea and a large ship for the first time. He watches fireworks and makes a wish. He dreams of running a bakery one day and says he will sometimes overlook people who secretly take bread. For a hungry boy, the greatest dream is a place filled with bread and a life in which he can share it with others.

Marcello is a painter trapped by his lack of ability while living on his father’s reputation. By exploiting Rosina’s talent, he manages to preserve his fame. He even says that, as he grows older, he plans to release her paintings one at a time and pretend that he has painted them himself. Yet he also worries about Rosina’s failing health and promises to help her publish work under her own name someday. His words do not seem entirely false. He sincerely recognizes her talent while continuing to use it for his own survival and reputation.

Rosina’s illness appears to be linked to the toxic pigments of the 16th century and the poorly ventilated workshop. The musical does not identify a specific substance or disease, but it naturally incorporates the dangers of the materials to which painters of the period could have been exposed.

The fire begins when the flame from Marcello’s lamp ignites paint dust in the workshop. Using a lamp in a workshop of the period is not unusual, but it appears suddenly in the fire scene and feels somewhat like a prop introduced only to cause the accident. If the lamp had appeared several times earlier, or if the danger of flame and paint dust had been briefly suggested, the fire would have felt more like the result of an existing risk and less like a sudden plot device.

The discovery and restoration of the painting in 2020 are also shown in some detail, adding a sense of reality to the story. Art conservator Viola studies the style and materials and uses infrared examination to find hidden traces. Nicola has already obtained authentication and is preparing to announce the work, but Viola persuades him to delay the announcement. She travels to Venice herself and searches Rosina’s former studio and Marcello’s workshop for evidence. The restoration of a damaged painting gradually becomes the restoration of an artist’s erased name.

In the first scene featuring Rosina and Marta, their hardships—including a pickpocket and bad weather—are created dynamically through lighting and the movements of the two actors. These detailed choices quickly draw the audience into the story. The production also moves smoothly between past and present using only changes in costume and hairstyle.

A scene near the end, in which the present-day Viola briefly appears as Marta from the past, is particularly interesting. Because Viola has already uncovered the truth behind the painting, the scene can be read as her reconstruction of the past. It may also suggest that Viola has inherited Marta’s role in returning Rosina’s name to the world—or even that Viola is Marta’s reincarnation.

The four actors move the easels, canvases, tables, and other props themselves, but the stage never feels untidy. Despite moving between different places and periods on a small stage, the transitions do not interrupt the flow.

Many original Korean musicals rely heavily on spoken dialogue, but this production gives a large part of the storytelling to music, and the melodies are good. With four performers, the vocal combinations are varied and full, and the reprises are used well. I consider a score successful if it leaves a good impression on a first hearing. Many songs need to become familiar before they can be fully appreciated. Only one or two numbers stayed in my mind immediately, but the score as a whole made a positive impression.

As Rosina, Park So-hyun handled the high belting passages with strength. Rosina has the most songs and dialogue, but in this performance, she left a gentler impression than the more sharply defined Marta, Marcello, and Jacopo.

Marta seems likely to stand out regardless of the actor because the character has such a distinct personality. Even so, Kim Dan Yi was the strongest performer in this cast. Her singing was clean, and her acting brought out both Marta’s boldness and her warmth.

Park Sun Young, as Marcello, had a vocal quality different from that of the other three actors. His strongly lowered-larynx production gave him so much volume that it almost sounded amplified beyond the others. With slightly more stable pitch, his voice could fill a much larger theater.

As Jacopo, Yoon Ji-sung had a pleasant tone in the lower and baritone range, neither too thick nor too light, and he also sounded good in the rest of his range. His spoken diction was clear. My tolerance for overt cuteness was tested when he played up Jacopo’s boyish charm, but he was still adorable.

Kim Jae-hwan, a fellow member of Wanna One, was seated nearby at this performance. Audience members who recognized him began to murmur, and I later heard that he had come as a surprise without telling Yoon Ji-sung. He remained fully engaged through the special curtain call. Yoon gave a good performance, so watching him must have been a proud experience for his friend as well.

Portrait of a Boy seems capable of having a long life. While watching it, I naturally began considering whether it could work overseas, and I found few major risks. Its compact structure, with four actors moving between two periods, the visual process of restoring a damaged painting and recovering an artist’s erased name, and the story of a woman’s work surviving under a man’s name all have clear potential to reach international audiences. An English-language production may need to clarify the relationship between the baron and Jacopo, explain the limits Rosina faces as a foreigner in Venice, and place a few earlier clues about her illness and the fire. Even so, the central themes and emotions should travel without much difficulty.

One question remained. A female painter in 16th-century Venice could certainly have dreamed of preserving her own name, but what barriers would a poor foreign woman have faced when learning to paint, submitting work to the guild, and seeking recognition as an artist? The musical explains that Rosina is rejected because she is a woman and a foreigner. One or two more specific lines about her place of origin and the restrictions of the workshop and guild system would make her struggle to protect her name feel even more real.