Customer Reviews

The Most Happy Fella (2000 Studio Cast)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Given how much is wonderfully right with this recording, it's a shame that enough is wrong with it to deny it the fifth star. The problem lies mainly in the casting. Everyone sings beautifully, as one might expect from the albums of this series. But the book scenes rarely register with the proper impact because of the lack of chemistry between the leads and the lack of suitability of the leads for their roles. (Tony winner Karen Ziemba comes across as sweet and winsome, for instance, where the role of Cleo requires a genuine force of nature.)

Still, the album is gorgeous from start to finish. The fine singing, the luminous stereo sound, the numerous restored cut songs (one performed by original Rosabella Jo Sullivan Loesser), the thick and elaborate booklets (essays, photos and libretto), and the signatures of both Loesser women (available to the first 100 people to buy the album through Amazon) are all major pluses. Emily Loesser is radiant as Rosabella, and the recently deceased Louis Quilico offers an excellent take on Tony.

This album cannot replace the definitive and very complete original cast album, which stands as perhaps the best representation of a classic score as it appeared in a show. But it is still an invaluable supplement to that album; people familiar with the original will want to hear a longer and sonically superior take on it, and people unfamiliar with it might find the newer one a better place to start.

I waited over a year for this recording to come out, since I first heard that Jay was going to make it. So, obviously, my expectations were quite high, and I am happy to say that the finished product met every expectation and then some. The late Louis Quilico shows great passion and emotion. His voice can make you feel whatever Tony is feeling. This recording is a great final work for a great voice that will be sorely missed. Emily Loesser gives a vibrant freshness to Rosabella that is as equal to her mother's in the original production. And the added bonus track of "Wanting to be Wanted," sung by Jo Sullivan Loesser is a great bonus that brings the whole shows history back around to its beginnings. Frank would be very proud to know that his show has been so brillianly preserved the way it should be heard.

Of course, I guess any full recording of this great score would be worth owning, as long as the cast members aren't completely awful. Of course, it's not the OBCR, but what is? Louis Quillco has a darker timbre than Robert Weede, but that's not a problem. The biggest problem with Quillco's performance is that he fails to delve sufficently into Tony's character arc - this is a man whom we are told is shy and easily intimidated at first, but by the third act's "She's Gonna Go Home With Me," Tony is forceful and commanding. Quillco hit all the right notes of the character, but his choices seem completely seperate. It's like he understands each scene, but not how one leads to another. This doesn't make the ending as powerful as it could be. Emily Loesser, in her mother's role of Rosabella, is quite good, I think. For never having played the character, she seems to coalesce right into this group of actors and she generally finds new and interesting character choices. She doesn't have that powerful lonliness that Jo Sullivan had - her "Somebody Somewhere" doesn't match her mother's at all. But for the rest of the show, I think she does quite nicely, especially after she realizes she loves Tony. Her "Warm All Over" is quite distinctive and very good. Karen Ziemba has been criticized as being too nice as Cleo, but personally, I think this makes Cleo a more human character and less "comic relief." I don't quite understand a few of her choices, but overall, I really like her. She seems to have real chemistry with Don Stephenson, too. Although their "label scene" is, I think, a little too over-the-top. I like Stephenson's Texas twang, and he's committed to the part. "Standing On The Corner" is kind of slow, though, and the harmonies are oddly balanced (the bass part is a lot louder than the melody.)

Now we come to the worst and best cast members. Worst: Richard Muenz. Sorry, I love you, but you are far far far too old for Joe, and you sound it. I really do think that Muenz is terrific in the '79 video, but he sounds like an old man, which really makes a lot of the ending of the first act silly. He used to have a bright, brilliant baritone, and now he quavers on the top notes of "Joey Joey Joey." Not his fault, but they should've used a younger actor. Best: Nancy Shade. She plays Tony's sister Marie, and she is the only cast member on this recording that surpasses the original, Mona Paulee. The liner notes talk about how Marie is often played as an unhappy spinster, and to my ears, Paulee does just that. Also, it's slightly unbelievable to hear her completely American accent contrasting with her "brother"'s heavily accented English. Shade uses a slight accent, but her real triumph is using her desperate love for Tony and her real belief that Rosabella will never love Tony as well as she does. This makes the final confrontation in Act Three powerfully moving.

Of course, Shade has a secret weapon: the bonus tracks. Three of the bonus tracks are cut sequences for Marie that work together to create a fully three-dimensional character. Loesser's original first Tony and Marie sequence, that culminated in "No One Is Ever Going To Love You," is incredible. When I heard it, I immediately went back and listened to it again. And then I did it again. BRILLIANT. That man is brilliant, and that song is brilliant, and this show is brilliant. That 50$-plus CD is worth it alone for that one bonus track. And the CD ends on an up note: Jo Sullivan's recording of "Wanting to be Wanted," the song that "Somebody Somewhere" replaced. "Somebody Somewhere" is a better song, but Jo Sullivan sounds so good for her age! Possibly, even better than she sounded back in the 50s (I always thought she was a bit shrill on the OCR), and her acting is just as amazing now as it was then.

Loving Guys and Dolls as much as I do I wanted to familiarize myself with this other Frank Loesser hit. I knew some of the songs (such as Standing on the Corner; Joey, Joey, Joey; and Big "D"), but never in the context of how they pertained to this musical. What a revelation! The story is about how an older vineyard owner deceives a much younger mail-order bride into marriage, with the usual consequences. I found The Most Happy Fella to be both joyous and touching. This new Jay recording possesses wonderful sound and superb singing from the entire cast. The generous libretto that is provided greatly enhances the enjoyment of the music and story. Oh how I wish a film was made of this masterpiece, like what was done for Guys and Dolls. Am I the only person who has observed a similarity between "The Most Happy Fella" and a wonderful 1950's movie called "Wild is the Wind", starring Anna Magnante and Anthony Quinn? HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, 10 STARS!

The Most Happy Fella is unique in all the musical theatre. It hits a happy medium, possessing the weight of opera and the sparkle of musical comedy. The new recording, while not replacing the previous ones, is now itself irreplaceable. What a masterful production this is! The casting is successful all the way, but the real surprise is Emily Loesser as Amy. Her voice is perfection, a high, bright instrument incapable of a false note. All the voices are just right, though Quilico's Tony is a bit unshaded. He's a superb singer, no doubt about it, but the earlier Tonys, Weede and Malas, were far better actors. For this is a role requiring a brilliant singer-actor. No matter: just settle back and enjoy the rich singing.

The producers of this fine set have given us a bouquet of goodies at the end, comprised of deleted music and scenes. They're all wonderful, but the cream on top is Jo Sullivan's rendition of "Wanting to be Wanted." It's a revelation. One can easily see why the more lyrical "Somebody, Somewhere" was substituted, but this song of naked longing is harrowing, and most welcome. I expect to play it again and again. Her singing, by the way, is just as fresh and light as it was forty-four years ago.

This is, in short, a recording not to be missed. Abbondanza!

This is a three-CD set, which contains the entire score of the classic Frank Loesser musical. This recording boasts a superb cast including Emily
Loesser, daughter of Loesser and Jo Sullivan, the original Broadway lead. In Emily's case, talent is certainly hereditary. She shines as Rosabella, supported by an unmatched cast of strong and well-cast singers.

This is the first complete recording of the entire score and it is peerless. Anybody who enjoys the better known Loesser shows, ("Guys and Dolls," "How to Succeed" et al,) should get familiar with this gem of a show,

A delightful recording from beginning to end!

Ethan Mordden in one of his books observes that cast albums of performances are better than studio ones because performing the role eight times a week gives the performers a certain elan and comfort that is almost impossible to come up with reading from a score for a one-time performance. This recording is a typical testament to this.

There is nothing outright "wrong" here, and if one had never heard the original cast it would seem magnificent by default, given Loesser's stunning achievement. But overall, there are two problems.

One is that this recording elicits the codger's complaint that they just don't make singers like they used to. Louis Quilico is good enough -- but often fails to support his tone through the line and has a tendency to scrape the high notes. Robert Weede did not have these problems -- although maybe because he was singing the role six times a week. Nancy Slade usefully gives Marie a bit of an Italian accent (Mona Paulee's pure American was technically a little implausible given how her brother talked) and delves into the inner torment of the character, but vocally she is often more forced than Paulee was. Even when singing, Paulee conveyed the same character she spoke in, but Slade's "opera" tone often sacrifices the character she is supposed to be playing. Richard Muenz' voice sits a little low for Joey -- Art Lund was effortless where Muenz has to force it a bit. Emily Loesser is just fine -- but never as creamy and solid as her mother was; but then, few of today's singers are. Is it because I am a singer that I hear these things more than many might? Perhaps, but I doubt I am alone.

Then there is the acting issue. Karen Ziemba alternates between aping Susan Johnson's inflections a little too closely, and more generally doing Cleo as rather generically sweet. But we already have a sweetie in the show, Rosabella, and thus Ziemba's rendition of Cleo as essentially the same character she played in STEEL PIER is rather redundant. Thus this recording lacks the contrast between Sullivan's ingenue and Johnson's brassy soubrette which was essential to musicals of the period. Johnson was truly smashing and rather unique with her broad and vernacular sounding belt -- but there are singers other than ingenue Ziemba who could have essayed a competitive reading (Kim Criswell? Debra Monk?). And Quilico, despite his stature in the opera world, never conveys the Mediterranean warmth that makes Rosabella's falling for him make some kind of sense. Singers get away with this doing the likes of TOSCA and DON GIOVANNI -- opera is about vocal technique above all. But in MOST HAPPY FELLA we need more.

And there are times when Edwards conducts too slowly -- OOH, MY FEET becomes a dirge, STANDIN' ON THE CORNER lopes instead of bouncing. I don't think this is just a matter of being used to the original recording -- the accompaniments to these songs were clearly written with brisker tempos in mind, in my view.

There are high spots. Don Stephenson blows the original Herman out of the water, inflecting the character and his songs with a delightful Texas twang. The crate-labelling scene is delightful. The cut songs are interesting -- the ones limning Marie as a pathetic wretch would have brought the show closer to opera than was perhaps feasible in the 1950s.

But I do not process this recording overall as the gem the other reviewers do. Especially since the original caught almost all of the score, I can't help feeling that it stands as the definitive reading still -- better singing and better acting, and the mono sound was marvelous in spite of itself, especially on CD. Opera fans may cottom to this set more than I do, but for musicals fans this set is basically useful as a reference if you are up to shelling out the money.

Before reading this review, read the Amazon review above for a well-written coverage and outline about this release, Frank Loesser's masterpiece.

I come to this recording without any preconceptions as, apart from a few well-known songs, I didn't know this show or any of the other existing recordings. So I hadn't established any favourite interpretations or pre-conceived ideas on how it should be done. However, I do have experience in musical direction/conducting with a range of musicals, and all this allowed me to bring a fresh but musically experienced ear and mind to this recording.

What I heard as I listened to this show was an outstanding performance of a wonderful operetta. I was confused by the sudden significance of Marie at the end, but the deleted songs eplained all. Some of these, at least, should never have been deleted, no matter that the show is long, as their removal damages the dramatic integrity of the show. The recording producers are to be congratulated for including these songs.

Other reviewers have their favourite interpreters of various roles and are a little disappointed that the interpretations here differ from their favourites. I listened to the recording as a totality, and find that it works magnificently both dramatically and musically. A few minor spots of weakness cause no damage to the overall production. Each performer brings a valid and believable interpretation to his/her role in both their acting and singing. Supported by an excellent (large) orchestra and a musical director who clearly understands the material he is working with, I cannot imagine a better total performance. And you must consider the performance in TOTAL and not as an assembly of bits. To say, 'Oh, I would prefer this bit to be done by performer A, and this bit by performer B etc., etc.' is not really valid, because such choices may not necessarily come together successfully as a total cast. This cast DOES come together as a close-knit team in all aspects, including the casting of an operatic soprano among the voices.

In summation, if you want a complete recording of 'The Most Happy Fella', don't hesitate; buy this, despite its cost. You get a wonderful, well-recorded performance, ALL the music written for the show on three well-filled CDs, plus the complete libretto and a second significant booklet filled with interesting information about the show and the recording.

As an addendum, I sent a copy of this recording along with a suggestion that it was time for a new production to the appropriate people in my home-town (Melbourne, Australia, population app. 4 million) and was overjoyed to get a reply that a professional production is going to follow!

Listening to this recording is like hearing Loesser's magnificent score for the very first time; perhaps because of its completeness, or the inclusion of dialogue, or John Yap's beautifully engineered stereo sound. But I think most of the credit belongs to conductor John Owen Edwards and the London National Symphony Orchestra for revealing ". . the lushly orchestrated, harmonically dense fabric of Loesser's score . ." Now, more than ever, we can fully appreciate what is - in my opinion - one of the five best scores ever written for the Broadway stage. (The others: SHOW BOAT, PORGY AND BESS, CANDIDE, and SWEENEY TODD.) And, like this CD, the most thrilling recordings are those done with philharmonic forces: John McGlinn/London Sinfonietta; Simon Rattle/London Philharmonic; Bernstein/London Philharmonic; Andrew Litton/New York Philharmonic. This experience is best explained by Elisabeth Vincentelli's editorial review of the NY Phil's SWEENEY TODD: ". . it'll make you even more bitter next time you're at a Broadway show where they try to cut corners by using a pared-down ensemble: The music's power could flatten trees."

Thomas May's editorial review for Amazon, as well as the customer reviews by Michael A. Benedetto and Bryan Leech pretty much sum up how I feel about this recording. Along with the 1956 Original Broadway cast recording, it's a recording that no serious fan or student of the American Musical Theater can do without.

This recording is a theatrical treasure. The Original Production should have had a longer run but opened a short time after the huge hit MY FAIR LADY.

Emily Loesser is a joy and the unique connection of being the daughter of the creator of the role as well as the daughter of the Lyricist and Composer.


With a strong Cast made up of Theater pros.

Don't miss it