Love can be fickle. In "The Winner Takes It All" from the hit ABBA musical Mamma Mia, Siobhan McCarthy sings to a lover who has moved on. They had something once, but now it's gone.

   From Phantom of the Opera Sarah Brightman as a young opera star, sings, "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" over the grave of her father. That's love too, possibly the most enduring of all.

   Jerry Orbach, lately famous as Detective Lennie Briscoe in TV's Law and Order, was in fact one of Broadway's great leading men during the golden age of the book musical. His big break came in The Fantasticks, the show that became the world's hugest musical, hit. That little show featured his big voice on this timeless evocation of love, which urges us all to "Try To Remember" just how it was when we were young, and in... Love is forever.             

   Betty Buckley's rendition of "Memory" for the American cast album of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats is proof positive so far as a recording can he that, she possessed the finest stage voice of her generation. (No room here for "He Plays the Violin" from 1776, her first recording, and possibly the slyest metaphor for sex ever writ-ten in lyric form.)                 

   Julie Andrews wasn't in Babes in Arms. She was a babe in arms, born only two years before the Rodgers and Hart musical debuted on B'way. But her rendition of the classic Larry Hart lyric "My Funny Valentine" does it more than justice.

   Love overlooks many faults. Stephen Sondheim once said that he couldn't write a love song, but he could write a song for a lady in a red dress crying at the end of a bar. That's what makes him Broadway's most recent genius. Great theatre songs are time, place and character specific. But they're also universal. From Sweeney Todd, "Not While I'm Around" is a great paean to the protectiveness lovers have for each other. Love begets possessiveness.  

   Was Mary Magdalene a whore? Too long portrayed as such, contemporary researchers don't think so. But as Jesus' only female disciple (and not even invited to the last supper - what chauvinists), she worshipped him. In the Tim Rice/Andrew Lloyd Webber version of the story, with Christ as the first Superstar, she admits "I Don't Know How to Love Him." A good thing. After all, Mary was married to someone else.

   Love is romantic. And who wrote romance better than Rodgers and Hammerstein! Contemporary vocalists Peabo Bryson and Lea Salonga sing "I Have Dreamed" from The King and I, a rendition which goes to prove just how versatile are Rodgers and Hammerstein's many love songs.

   Love is blind. Alternate: Love hurts. Is it worth it? In "Love, Look Away" from the film soundtrack of Flower Drum Song, Reiko Sato (dubbed by the great opera singer Marilyn Horne) doesn't think so.

   And love is sometimes unrequited. In the recent Seussical, Gertrude McFuzz (Janine La Manna) sings "Notice Me, Horton" to a distracted Horton the Elephant (Kevin Chamberlin). He seems to be busy counting clovers in a patch, miles long. Not to worry, though - he does notice her.

   Stephen Schwartz, melodious songwriter of Godspell, knew he needed a love song in his repertoire, and wrote one for Pippin. To these two very ordinary people, love is comfortable. There's nothing better than candles, confidences, and singing a "Love Song."              

   Yet how often love goes awry. For Mack (Sennett) and Mable (Normand), the great director/actress team of silent movie days, there's murder, drugs and careers in the way. (Sounds like a contemporary TV show.) Bernadette Peters sings "Time Heals Everything." It doesn't. But songs do. Listen to this one, and maybe it will heal your broken heart.           

   Love can be cheap, Queenie (Toni Collette), a showgirl and Black (Yancey Arias), the handsomely mysterious escort of a Broadway actress, meet at an orgy in The Wild Party. Any wonder their "People Like Us" is the most cynical of love songs?

   Above all, love is sentimental. The lyricist of "How Much Is That Doggy In the Window," Bob Merrill wrote "Love Makes the World Go Round" for Carnival. Anna Maria Alberghetti's soaring coloratura is a fitting finale to this romantic album, for, as we have seen in this eclectic collection of Broadway love songs, love does indeed. According to this one, "somebody soon will love you, if' no one loves you now." Be patient. You'll find your great love. In the mean-time, there's always a song for you.