Cincinnati Music Theater's production of Hello, Dolly! is warmer funnier, and more intelligent than some well known previous incarnations. Without a diva in the title role (a la Carol Channing or Barbra Streisand), something of the play's original depth of feeling and characterization emerges.

Lisa Breithaupt is excellent as Dolly Gallagher Levi, a middle-aged widow of the 1890s who has been cobbling together a living by making nuptial matches for others. She realizes that she needs the security of a well-heeled husband: Horace Vandergelder (Chuck Ingram), a cheapskate and owner of a feed store in Yonkers. Breithaupt's Dolly is, by turns, sincere, sarcastic, vivacious and desperate -- and she knows how to sell a song.

Hello, Dolly!, based on Thornton Wilder's award-winning play The Matchmaker,

also concerns a couple of young swells employed by Vandergelder. This culturally impoverished duo travels to New York City for a day of grand adventure. The play is ultimately about yearning, taking risks, finding the main chance, and -- you guessed it -- falling in love.

Director and choreographer Dennis Murphy does the production a real service by trusting the authenticity of its characters and the wit of its dialogue. Hello, Dolly! comes alive because it is extremely well crafted. Jerry Herman's score is lush, vibrant and upbeat, with twice as many big numbers as the average musical, including "Put on Your Sunday Clothes," "Before the Parade Passes By," "Hello, Dolly!," and "It Only Takes a Moment."

As head clerk Cornelius Hackl, Joe Stollenwerk brings a revelatory sincerity and depth to the role, yet he never sacrifices the character's sense of playfulness. Meghan Kapp, as young widow Irene Molloy, matches the intensity of Stollenwerk's performance, rendering the beautiful "Ribbons Down My Back" with a dramatic control and intensity.

The spectacle, which includes the entire ensemble wearing sumptuous costumes, was right on the money. Sets were astonishingly varied and swiftly moving. Murphy's choreography was appropriate, but soon became repetitive and mundane. Why couldn't we have at least a couple of waiters leaping and twirling their trays with abandon during the climactic "Hello Dolly" sequence? Grade: A-