The Most Happy Fella

The Most Happy Fella
London Studio Cast Recording
Music	Frank Loesser
Lyrics	Frank Loesser
Book	Frank Loesser
Basis	They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard
Productions	1956 Broadway 1959 Broadway revival 1960 West End 1979 Broadway revival 1980 US television 1991 Goodspeed Opera House 1991 Ahmanson Theatre 1992 Broadway revival 2006 New York City Opera

The Most Happy Fella is a 1956 musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Frank Loesser. The story, about a romance between an older man and younger woman, is based on the play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard. The original Broadway production ran for 14 months and it has enjoyed several revivals, including one staged by the New York City Opera.

A friend of Loesser’s recommended the Howard play They Knew What They Wanted as material for a musical in 1952. After he read it, he agreed it had musical potential, but decided to omit the political, labor, and religious material. It took him four years to complete the musical.

The Most Happy Fella frequently has been described as an opera, but some have qualified the term. In his book The World of Musical Comedy, Stanley Green noted that the musical is “one of the most ambitiously operatic works ever written for the Broadway theatre ... Loesser said ‘I may give the impression this show has operatic tendencies. If people feel that way – fine. Actually all it has is a great frequency of songs. It’s a musical with music.’ ” In an article in the Playbill Magazine for the original Broadway production, Loesser wrote, “What was left seemed to me to be a very warm simple love story, happy ending and all, and dying to be sung and danced.”Brooks Atkinson, theatre critic (The New York Times), called it a “music drama”, noting Loesser “has now come about as close to opera as the rules of Broadway permit.” Composer, conductor, and musical theatre teacher Lehman Engel and critic/author Howard Kissel called it a “fresh musical (perhaps opera)”.

In the Golden Gate Restaurant in San Francisco in 1927, tired and harassed young waitress Cleo commiserates with her friend. Cleo's feet hurt ("Ooh My Feet") and her friend has had to fend off the cashier's advances ("I Know How It Is"). As they clean up ("Seven Million Crumbs"), Cleo's friend finds a jeweled tie pin and a note addressed to the friend as "Rosabella," written in odd broken English ("I Don't Know (The Letter)"). She decides to answer, thinking of the possibilities ("Somebody, Somewhere").