Ol' blue eyes could do no wrong in my house.

For Italian-Americans, Frank Sinatra was up there with Giuseppe Verdi, or at least Puccini. We are talking about mandatory listening. It was OK by me, the crooner had style, a set of velvety pipes and just enough mystery to turn into an icon with staying power. Matthew Stockwell Dibble agrees. Dibble is playing the role of Chanos in Come Fly Away, the very role he originated on Broadway in Twyla Tharp's latest dansical, running at Gexa Energy Broadway at The Hobby Center on April 10-15.

Come Fly Away is Tharp's love letter to the great singer, one she knows inside and out after having choreographed her 1984 mega-hit Sinatra Suite, danced by Mikhail Baryshnikov and Elaine Kudo. Tharp's signature ballet has been performed on such notable companies as American Ballet Theatre, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, and Ballet Arizona. For many, Tharp and Sinatra are a match made in dance heaven. As the queen of nuance, she mined his delicate emotional tonality with her savvy for turning gesture into fluid forms.

Like her previous Broadway success, Movin' Out, the story is told through dance, allowing the songs to be re-imagined as part of the lives of a group of characters hanging out in a club. Sinatra was the quintessential loney guy with a drink at the bar, so it works.

According to Dibble, Sinatra's classics such as "Fly Me to the Moon," "My Way," "New York, New York" and "Witchcraft" fit together well to tell a story.

It's no accident that Dibble ended up in Come Fly Away. His relationship with Tharp dates back to 1997 when she came to set her breakthrough ballet, Push Comes to Shove, while he was dancing with The Royal Ballet. "We certainly had heard about her and had great admiration for her work," recalls Dibble. "She asked me to demonstrate a step and well after that, we got on like a house on fire."

Dibble moved on to dance with Ballet K in Japan while Tharp went on to win a Tony Award for Movin' Out and a 2004 National Medal of the Arts, all the while becoming a major force in ballet repertories all over the world. (Houston Ballet adds their second Tharp piece, The Brahms — Haydn Variations, a neoclassical tour de force, next season during Women@Art.)

Out of the blue, Tharp called Dibble while he was back in London to see if he wanted to come to New York. Dibble responded with a flat "no."

"You said 'No' to Tharp?" I asked him. "I didn't fancy living in New York," replied the dancer, sensibly. After some prodding, Dibble agreed to join Tharp's company. "It was a fantastic time to be working with her," Dibble remembers. "She created so many great works during that period. I loved every minute."

Dibble went on to dance in the national tour of Movin' Out. "We even stopped in Houston," he remembers.

Despite all his time dancing the legendary American choreographer's work, Dibble still finds Come Fly Away the ultimate Tharp experience. "It's a celebration of two great American artists, Sinatra and Tharp. The piece honors both of them," he insists. "As far as musical theater, Tharp is right up there with Jerome Robbins. The energy in the show is second to none. She has such a wonderful sense of humor. Her work really connects to people."

For Dibble, Sinatra's strength can be found in his impeccable musicality. "His phasing is just so danceable. Nobody can break up a word like Sinatra," says Dibble, as he sings "That's Life" to me over the phone. Tharp's highly ideosyncratic phrasing proved a delicious match for Sinatra's way with words. Her ability to translate inflection into dance steps is unmatched in the field.

Like most of Tharp's work, it's relentlessly athletic and full of risky moves. She is a taskmaster and the pace of the show travels at a mighty clip. "You have to take care of yourself," Dibble says. "She doesn't demand anything from any one else that she doesn't demand from herself."

Dibble also gets to dabble in a little drunk dancing in "That's My Baby," a number that had a difficult start. Tharp thought it landed with a thud. Then, she suggested that he try it pretending to be drunk, and well, it worked. Now, it's one of the show's most treasured numbers.

The transition from ballet dancer to musical theater came easily for Dibble. "I had taken on several meaty subjects in Kenneth McMillian's ballets," says Dibble. "There's a lot of acting in ballet, so that part came naturally to me. Ballet prepares you for theater."

Come Fly Away ends in an ensemble dance to Sinatra's poweful tune "My Way."

"It's like a national anthem,"explains Dibble. "The whole show comes together in that one song."

Get into the Sinatra groove with the cast of Come Fly Away

Mikhail Baryshnikov and Elaine Kudo in Tharp's Sinatra Suite