Get Happy

The Most Happy Fella at the Dicapo Opera Theater

            Frank Loesser’s third magnum opus (alongside How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and Guys and Dolls), The Most Happy Fella, is currently playing at the Dicapo Opera Theater (through July 8th) at East 76^th and 3^rd.  Is it an opera, though, or a musical?  No one is exactly sure, as it is not entirely operatic but too dominated by score throughout to be considered a traditional musical.  Regardless, The Most Happy Fella is entertaining in any format, if less in some forums than others.

            In Fella, an elderly vineyard manager named Tony (a talented and dynamic Michael Corvino), falls instantly in love with a San Franciscan Italian restaurant waitress who he calls Rosabella (played on the night I attended by an understudy, Christian Sineath).  (“Rosabella”’s real name is Amy, but that’s beside the point.)  Tony courts her from afar by letter, but the exercise reaches a head when Rosabella sends him her picture and asks him for his.  Tony’s cynical sister, Marie (Lisa Chavez), tells him he’s “not good-looking” and inadvertently convinces him to send Rosabella a picture of his restless foreman, Joe (Peter Kendall Clark, who has a beautiful voice but a lackluster acting ability).  Rosabella comes to Tony’s vineyard in Napa Valley as a mail-order bride, and, as they so often do, complications ensue.

Dicapo’s production is fun and nearly irresistible during the musical numbers.  Loesser’s score, as with all his work (his singles include “Heart and Soul” and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”), is brilliant, and delivered by the right voices it comes across more than Loesser himself could have hoped to imagine.   This is especially true in this staging, because Dicapo uses no electronic amplification in its intimate 204-seat theater, and the result is auditory magnificence as the audience hears the cast members as they were meant to be heard. 

Again, this is all very well during the numbers, but during the non-musical portions of the operetta most of the actors are hard to read, and their performances are not fully believable.  In simpler terms, I don’t buy it, especially turns like that of Lauren Hoffmeier as Cleo, Rosabella’s best friend, who gives the audience so many eye-rolling looks we become convinced we are watching an especially musical episode of “Jersey Shore.”  Few roles stand out but the lead, the Fella himself, Michael Corvino, whose Chico-esque accent and memorable performances essentially save the libretto.  Equally significant are the roles of Pasquale, Giuseppe and Ciccio, the three chefs who sing the magnificent “Abbondanza” number, and played unforgettably by Paolo Buffagni, Neil Darling, and Brian Carter.  The ensemble is average, not cardboard cutouts per se but near enough to cause cringes when they freeze, unnatural smiles on their faces, at the end of songs.

But somehow, what’s good about The Most Happy Fella is enough.  The score is fantastic and well-played by a full orchestra behind a screen onstage (and conducted with great panache by Pacien Mazzagatti), some actors do not entirely foul up the book, and the vocal talent is perhaps not unmatched but certainly great.  When Frank Loesser wrote this show (musical, opera, or whatever you wish to call it) in 1956, he meant it to be a comedy—Cleo states it explicitly.  But more than that, he meant to create something that could cause those who viewed it to become infected with the elation of his lead role.  When the cast rallies around Tony as he jumps for joy with Rosabella’s letter clutched to his chest, we can feel his delight.  We leave the theater with it.  That, for a stage show of any form, is enough.