VocalEssence – Philip Brunelle, artistic director

Sunday, October 14, 2007 (4 pm)

Following his success with Guys and Dolls, Frank Loesser’s next Broadway hit was The Most Happy Fella, a complicated May-December love story fraught with deception yet full of romance. The rich, luxurious music features dramatic orchestral writing, rousing choral numbers and catchy melodies that became hits on their own—“Joey, Joey, Joey” and “Standing on the corner, watching all the girls go by.” Vern Sutton will direct a semi-staged concert version of the musical with the VocalEssence Chorus and Ensemble Singers, soloists and orchestra.

Synopsis: Tony (Peter Halverson), an aging Italian immigrant who owns a vineyard in California’s Napa Valley, proposes by mail to Rosabella (Jennifer Baldwin Peden), a San Francisco waitress. She accepts, partly because Tony has sent her a photograph of Joe (Bradley Greenwald), his handsome ranch foreman. Arriving for the wedding, Rosabella is so upset at his deception that on her wedding night she gives herself to Joe. But over time, she learns to love her sweet-natured husband and confesses all to Tony — even that she is bearing Joe’s child.