BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

There is a great deal to admire about “The Bridges of Madison County,” the new Broadway musical crafted from Robert James Waller’s bestseller about an Iowa housewife’s four-day romance with a footloose charmer while her family is away at a state fair in 1965.

Jason Robert Brown contributes an often beautifully melodic and poetic score. A brunette Kelli O’Hara lends her ravishing soprano and radiant presence to the role of Francesca, an Italian emigrant who has settled into a cozy if not entirely fulfilled existence as a wife and mother in rural Iowa. “Rescue Me” star Steven Pasquale, who sings handsomely, is every hunky inch a heartthrob as Robert, a magazine shutterbug who wanders into Francesca’s life when he photographs historic bridges in her vicinity.

The core of Marsha Norman’s book, as it relates Francesca and Robert’s fleeting affair, is sensitively written and sure to appeal to women who might fantasize about experiencing just such a bittersweet romance. Norman even adds occasional bits of humor to leaven what otherwise would be a Harlequin epic.

Yet the show, which opened on Thursday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, is not altogether successful in its peripheries. The side scenes at the state fair involving Francesca’s humdrum husband (a solid Hunter Foster) and squabbling teen kids (Derek Klena, Caitlin Kinnunen) are rather flat. Glowingly lit by Donald Holder, set designer Michael Yeargan’s backdrop vista of the heartland evokes Edward Hopper, yet the stage pictures frequently are cluttered by smaller scenic pieces that are ceaselessly rearranged by the ensemble members who play nosy neighbors.

Still, it is easy to overlook these flaws when O’Hara and Pasquale are smoldering at front and center and singing Brown’s heartfelt songs so rapturously. This expansive score becomes nearly operatic in some of Francesca’s impassioned arias while other numbers such as “Get Closer” (richly sung by Cass Morgan) and “When I’m Gone” reflect country music. The piano-cello-guitar colors in Brown’s orchestrations give a gently pensive quality to much of the music.

Bartlett Sher, the director, has drawn warm, tender performances from O’Hara and Pasquale as their characters reluctantly surrender to passion. As the first act concludes, all but the flintiest of spectators cannot help but melt as they watch Francesca and Robert drift into a slow dance in the kitchen and confess how they are mutually “Falling Into You.” Between the seductive music and these performances, the result is a swooning evocation of desire that would make anyone gladly burn their bridges.

“The Bridges of Madison County” continues at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, 236 W. 45th St., New York. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.bridgesofmadisoncountymusical.com.