Er, Harold Hill, that is -- the titular "Music Man" that Wopat plays in N.C. Theatre's current production.

Wopat, the "Dukes of Hazzard" TV star-turned-Broadway leading man, turns in a thoroughly satisfying performance as the traveling con artist redeemed by librarian Marian Paroo (Jacquelyn Piro Donovan) in early 20th-century River City, Iowa.

The Hill role became virtually identified with Preston, who created it for the Meredith Willson musical's 1957 New York debut and 1962 movie. Wopat gives a convincing performance -- as "convincing" as any performance could be in such an exercise in lovable foolishness -- and if anything, he's a better singer than Preston. But the performance is graciously restrained such that it lets other cast members shine.

To recap the story: Hill, reviled by other drummers for giving them a bad name, runs a scam of selling instruments and uniforms to Midwestern yokels, then skipping town without delivering the promised boys' band. Arriving in River City, he sets out to run the scheme and wins over everyone in town except the librarian/music teacher, who sees through Hill and determines to expose him for the swindler he is.

Of course, when all seems lost and Hill, having learned through love the error of his ways, is about to be tarred and feathered, everything turns out happily.

Overall, director-choreographer Richard Sabellico's show is sparkly, tight and quick. It's a song-and-dance spectacle that still defers to the storytelling. And for all the quick switches of pace and mood -- say, the clever "Marian the Librarian" to the dreamy "My White Knight" to the bouncy "Wells Fargo Wagon" -- there's not a draggy moment.

And if the Iowa moon seems to stay full an awfully long time, and if the explicit distinction between billiards and pool made in "Ya Got Trouble" gets confused in River City's apparently magical geography -- who cares?

The cast is predominantly professional and its members perform professionally. Kirby Ward is a nimble Marcellus, the Hill sidekick, though his words get lost in the swirl of his big number, "Shipoopi." Some of the local talent stands out, too: Lamont Wade brings the most commanding stage presence to this production, putting a spin all his own on the bombastic Mayor Shinn; and young Michael Perez as Winthrop has a precocious way with a lisp.

Components, roles and performers mesh very well in this "Music Man," a show that could be a star vehicle but turns out a well-modulated ensemble job: a rewarding way to spend 2 1/2 hours that seem like no more than 1:45. And as for Wopat, his Harold Hill makes clear that he has left good ol' Luke Duke in the dust.

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