MOST HAPPY FELLA

Dicapo Opera Theatre, whose recent production of Frank Loesser’s Most Happy Fella garnered enormous critical success and sold-out performances, will bring back the musical this June for a limited run of four weeks.   

In his review (March 9, 2012), New York Times senior music critic Anthony Tommasini said of Dicapo’s production of Frank Loesser’s tender, tough, and melodically soaring work: “The stage direction is traditional, lively and effective.  The orchestra plays from the back of the stage, behind a scrim, which allows the theater’s small pit to be covered, giving the cast more room to twirl and shimmy during the dance numbers, deftly choreographed by Francine Harman.” And when the run was extended for two further performances he added:

The delightful production…the story of a mail-order marriage between a young waitress and an older Italian grape grower in the Napa Valley may be Loesser’s richest, most complex score.  The baritone Michael Corvino plays Tony, the vineyard owner, and the soprano Molly Mustonen is his beloved Rosabella, both wonderful. Best of all, the musical is performed in Dicapo’s intimate theater with no amplification—the bane of Broadway shows.                                                                                                                                            Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times, March 12, 2012

Writing on March 17, 2012 for The New York Concert Review, critic Harry Saltzman raved:

…superb, magnificent, sublime all come to mind. Forget about 1957—this was the best performance I’ve heard of this great American masterpiece; the perfect amalgam of wonderful unamplified singing (both operatic and pop,) moving acting, clear and simple staging, costumes which conjured up a time and a place, and beautiful orchestra playing. Kudos to Dicapo Opera Theatre’s General Director, Michael Capasso.  He has a smash hit show on his hands.

The Most Happy Fella, directed by Dicapo’s General Director Michael Capasso and conducted by Dicapo Music Director Pacien Mazzagatti, will be sung in English, and features sets by John Farrell, costumes by Julie Wyma, and lighting by Susan Roth.  The cast for this production follows:

Tony Esposito:     Michael Corvino

Rosabella:            Molly Mustonen

Cleo:                      Lauren Hoffmeier

Herman:                Brance Cornelius