Artist:Robert Weede
Song:Mamma, Mamma
Album:The Most Happy Fella: Original Broadway Cast
Robert Weede was an opera singer who starred in the 1956 Broadway musical The Most Happy Fella. The show was a big hit at the time. He was born Robert Wiedefeld Feb. 22, 1903 in Baltimore. He studied voice at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and in Milan, Italy. Weede made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1937 as Tonio in Pagliacci. Weede recorded for Columbia and Capitol. Then in 1956 he had great success as Tony Esposito in the 1956 Broadway show The Most Happy Fella. Frank Loesser based the show on the play They Knew What They Wanted. The story is a romance between an older man and younger woman. It is considered to be one of the most operatic of Broadway musicals. So when Loesser was casting, he was looking for opera singers like Weede, Jo Sullivan and Art Lund. The Most Happy Fella opened on May 3, 1956 and ran until Dec. 14, 1957. Columbia Masterworks released a 2LP set of the show and an LP of excerpts. Both are available on CD. The Most Happy Fella has been revived on Broadway several times. Warner Bros. tried to produce a film version in 1962 starring Fred Astaire but they couldn't figure out the casting of the female lead so Astaire pulled out. Weede appeared in the Broadway show Milk and Honey in 1961 and that did well too. But other than that he stuck to opera until his death on July 9, 1972 at age 69. Here's Robert Weede performing Mamma, Mamma on the TV show American Musical Theater. This must have been a local show in New York as I didn't see an imdb listing.
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