Nine Hundred Sixth Program of the 2008-09 Season _____________________ Indiana University Opera Theater presents as its 405th production FRANK LOESSER’S MUSICAL THE MOST HAPPY FELLA Based on Sidney Howard’s They Knew What They Wanted Book, Music, and Lyrics by FRANK LOESSER English Supertitles by Sarah Stankiewicz Vincent Liotta, Stage Director Constantine Kitsopoulos, Conductor William Forrester, Set Designer Linda Pisano, Costume Designer Michael Schwandt, Lighting Designer Joshua Bergasse, Choreographer Adam Noble, Fight Choreographer Ryan Tibbetts, Chorus Master The Most Happy Fella is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI. 421 West 54th Street, New York, NY 10019 Phone: 212-541-4684 Fax: 212-397-4684 www.MTIShows.com ____________________ Musical Arts Center Friday Evening, April Tenth Saturday Evening, April Eleventh Friday Evening, April Seventeenth Saturday Evening, April Eighteenth Eight O’Clock music.indiana.edu 200820-208009-2009 IUIU OP OPERERAA ttheatheatererSEASSEONASON salutes Giorgio Tozzi In 1980, Giorgio Tozzi earned a Tony Award nomination for best leading actor in a musical for his work as Tony in The Most Happy Fella. It is therefore most appropriate for IU Opera Theater to dedicate tonight’s performance of The Most Happy Fella to him. Tozzi enjoyed a distinguished career as a leading bass with the Metropolitan Opera for over 20 years and sang bass lead roles in many of the world’s other major opera houses. Tozzi also found success on the Broadway stage. Besides the role in The Most Happy Fella, he dubbed the singing part for the character of Emile de Becque in the movie version of South Pacific and spent many years playing the role of de Becque himself in various revivals and road tours, including one in Lincoln Center in the late 1960s. After a varied and distinguished career, Giorgio Tozzi joined Indiana University in 1990, where he became a Distinguished Professor until his retirement in 2007. With these performances, we salute Giorgio Tozzi and celebrate his wonderful talents as a singer and a teacher. 200820-208009-2009 IUIU OP OPERERAA ttheatheatererSEASSEONASON honors Timothy Noble With these performances of The Most Happy Fella, baritone Timothy Noble has announced that he will conclude his stage career. Professor Noble has enjoyed an international career spanning 42 years. His career is as varied as it is celebrated. As a young man, he toured with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians as a singer, arranger, and rehearsal conductor. He was also a successful nightclub, summer stock, and Broadway performer. His performance of Harold Hill in the Telarc recording of The Music Man garnered a Grammy nomination for Noble and our own Singing Hoosiers. His operatic career began in 1981, and he has performed leading baritone roles in major opera houses throughout the world. He is best known as one of the great interpreters of Giuseppe Verdi’s lead male operatic roles, from Rigoletto to Falstaff. Born in Indianapolis and raised in Peru, Ind., Professor Noble is a graduate of the Jacobs School of Music, where he performed many roles as a student, including Robespierre and Agamemnon in John Eaton’s Danton and Robespierre and The Cry of Clytaemnestra, respectively. We honor Distinguished Professor Timothy Noble and offer our congratulations to him for all the occasions on which he has moved us through his performances in the Musical Arts Center. CAST (in order of vocal appearance) Cashier Jake Haynie Cleo Bethany Barber, Kelly Glyptis Rosabella Elisabeth Marshall, Sarah Starling Postman David Klink Tony Aleksey Bogdanov, Timothy Noble Marie Meredith Mills Kiesgen, Lisa Lowry Max Joe Uthup Herman Jonathan B Lerner, Mark Van Arsdale Clem Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek Al Jerome Síbulo Jake Benjamin Werley Sheriff Peter Wesoloski Joe Jesse Malgieri, Tom Stoffel Pasquale Mark Davies, Kris Simmons Ciccio David Johnson, James Martinez Giuseppe Blake Kendall, Anthony Webb, Doctor Jonathan Matthews, Christopher Nelson Priest Scott Harrison Hogsed Bus Driver Ryan Torino Townspeople, Workers, Neighbors Stephanie Benkert, Jay Bennett, Nathan Brown, Rainelle Bumbaugh, Mary Cloud, Marc Coomes, Lydia Dahling, Kiri Deonarine, Jocelyn Goodmon, Ashleigh Guida, Jake Haynie, Jonathan Hilber, Erin Houghton, Melissa Hudson, David Klink, Will Lockhart, Andrew Nason, Matthew Opitz, Keriann Otaño, Michael Powell, Jessica Skiba, Ryan Torino, Joe Uthup, Stephanie Washington, Peter Wesoloski, Laura Wilde, Laura Whittenberger, Jacob Wooden, Christina Zimmer Dancers Stephanie Benkert, Jay Bennett, Mary Cloud, Marc Coomes, Ashleigh Guida, Jake Haynie, Melissa Hudson, Matthew Opitz, Jerome Sibulo, Christiaan Smith-Kotlarek, Ryan Torino, Stephanie Washington, Laura Whittenberg, Christina Zimmer The Most Happy Fella Musical Numbers The action of the play takes place in California before the Depression. Act I, 1 A restaurant in San Francisco – Winter Ooh! My Feet (Cleo) Somebody, Somewhere (Rosabella) Act I, 2 Main Street, Napa, California – May The Most Happy Fella (Postman, Tony, Ensemble) A Long Time Ago (Tony, Marie) Standing on the Corner (Herman, Jake, Clem, Al) Joey, Joey, Joey (Joe) Soon, you gonna leave me, Joe (Tony, Joe) Rosabella (Tony) Act I, 3 Tony’s Yard – Late Summer Abbondanza (Giuseppe, Ciccio, Pasquale) Sposalizio (Joe, Ensemble) I Seen Her at the Station (Postman) Benvenuta (Giuseppe, Ciccio, Pasquale) Such Friendly Faces (Rosabella, Joe) No Home, No Job (Rosabella) Don’t Cry (Joe, Rosabella) Act II, 1 Tony’s Yard – One Week later Fresno Beauties (Workers, Joe, Rosabella) Love and Kindness (Doctor) Happy to Make Your Acquaintance (Rosabella, Tony, Cleo) You’re Her Friend (Cleo, Marie) Big D (Herman, Cleo, Workers) Act II, 2 Tony’s Yard – September How Beautiful the Days (Rosabella, Tony, Marie, Joe) Young People (Marie) Warm All Over (Rosabella) Young People (reprise) (Tony) Act II, 3 Outside the Barn – several days later I Like Everybody (Herman, Cleo) Act II, 4 Tony’s yard – an afternoon in October I Love Him… (Rosabella) I Love You… (Rosabella, Tony) My Heart is so Full of You (Rosabella, Tony) Mamma, Mamma (Tony) Act II, 5 Tony’s Yard – later that evening Abbondanza (reprise) (Pasquale, Giuseppe, Ciccio) Song of a Summer Night (Doctor, Neighbors) Please Let Me Tell You (Rosabella) Act II, 6 Napa Depot – later that same evening I’ve Been Too Long in One Place… (Joe, Al, Clem, Jake) She Ain’t Got No Place to Go… (Tony) Tony, Tony,… (Tony, Marie, Cleo) I Made a Fist… (Herman, Cleo) I Canno’ Leave You Money on da Table (Tony, Rosabella) My Wife She’s-a Love Me… (Tony, Rosabella, Entire Company) Opera Program Notes: The Most Happy Fella by Daniel Bishop Frank Loesser’s ‘Most Unusual’ Musical In Frank Loesser’s obituary, friend and collaborator Abe Burrows recalled a surprising and telling exchange with the composer following the 1956 première of The Most Happy Fella Burrows had complimented Loesser’s show-stopping comedy numbers, only to receive this gruff rebuke: “The hell with those! We know I can do that kind of stuff Tell me where I made you cry ” In several ways, Loesser’s desire to offer his audience genuine pathos is representative of his determination to expand and develop the form in which he worked It also tells us much about the historical context of this “most happy” (and most unusual) American musical After the phenomenal success of Guys and Dolls in 1950, Loesser did not care to repeat himself Perhaps Guys and Dolls, regarded by many as the “perfect” musical comedy, left little room for improvement In any case, The Most Happy Fella is something quite different Many of its musical conventions are far more typical of opera than the Broadway musical—although Loesser, loathed to call his work an opera, preferred the somewhat evasive label of a “musical with a lot of music ” Loesser does not dispense entirely with the convention of self-contained musical “numbers ” At the same time, he does not let them limit his musical means: solos, ensembles, and choruses are tightly woven together with passages of arioso and recitative The result IU Art Museum Spring Special Exhibitions Be Inspired Through May 10, 2009 From Pen to Printing Press Ten Centuries of Islamic Book Arts Take a glimpse into the varied traditions of the written heritage of Islam, including calligraphy, illumination, painting, bookbinding, paper marbling, and printing. Also showing Transcendent: The Photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto admission is always free 812-855-5445 www.artmuseum.iu.edu is a musical in which nearly all dialogue is sung and in which melodic motives tie the drama together in a particularly “operatic” fashion Such experiments were not without precedent Nearly two decades earlier, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess (1935) had blurred the line between opera and Broadway More recently, works such as Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti (1951) had similarly sought to expand the limits of the musical to include a wealth of other influences And throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, a string of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals such as Carousel (1945) and South Pacific (1949) had balanced serious dramatic subjects with comedy and had fused song and story into an integrated whole Loesser chose difficult material with which to put his own stamp on these wider stylistic trends Sidney Howard’s Pulitzer-prize-winning play They Knew What They Wanted (1924) had flung its net far and wide, tackling prohibition, religion, and the politics of immigration and labor