FANNY A REVIEW

One of New York's happiest events is Encores presentations of Broadway musicals in concert, focusing on scores that are rarely heard,or not heard often enough. For the second show of it's fifteenth season this vital organization is presenting an excellent production of FANNY, and it is a joy to hear Harold Rome's truly fine score sung as well as it is here.
When it first opened in 1954 it was a long run hit [ 888 performances] despite the fact that it was a simple story involving four people that was overproduced and sometimes overpopulated. As a stagestruck 11 year old, I loved it, and the performances of Ezio Pinza and Walter Slezak in the leading roles have stayed with me ever since that time.
In adapting Marcel Pagnol's trilogy of plays S. N. Behrman and Joshua Logan created a book that seemed heavy handed and ponderous. Most of this has been eliminated in the the skillful concert adaptation by David Ives, so now the emphasis is on Harold Rome's soaring music and skillful lyrics, and they sound as fresh as ever in Phillip J. Lang's original orchestrations, and the great Encores orchestra is conducted expertly by Rob Berman.
The singing is beyond first rate and Marc Bruni's staging is top notch.
Many thanks to Encores for reviving FANNY and bringing back one of the 1950s most underrated scores.
At the N.Y. CITY CENTER 131 WEST 55th STREET N.Y.C. Feb 4th thru Feb 7th.