You state, ""Dreamer" has to be sung with a certain tender grace and delicacy, yet with clarity - with attention properly paid to vocal ennunciation and articulation, as Singers were trained to do back then before the advent of electronic amplification.
When we do this in the 21st Century, most listeners who have been brought up on electronified rock-&-roll, heavy metal, rap and the like will despise it, and describe it most contemptuously as being "Operetic".
Such sophisticated, modern ears are more than welcome to patronize their choice of high-intensity and decibel rock-concerts and raves to their heart's content; I shall not miss them a whit from the audiences of my performances."
Please take that load of crap and shove it up your ass. None of that malarkey even remotely applies to me. I find many songs from the era especially wonderful and yes, I know many of them myself. Equally, I'm a fan of of Stephen Foster as well. However, this particular piece has always just grated me the wrong way. So does one of my state's songs, "Beautiful Ohio." Maybe I hate the word beautiful. Let's not get into who has what taste huh? I will admit that your song here also works well in a certain Bugs Bunny cartoon.