Carousel (musical)
Carousel is the second musical by the team of Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The 1945 work was adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom, transplanting its Budapest setting to the Maine coastline. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He participates in a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; after it goes tragically wrong, he is given a chance to make things right. A secondary plot line deals with millworker Carrie Pipperidge and her romance with ambitious fisherman Enoch Snow. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals.
Carousel
Oscar Hammerstein II
- 1945 New York Drama Critics Circle Award, Best Musical
- 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Musical Revival
- 1994 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical
Following the spectacular success of the first Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, Oklahoma! (1943), the pair sought to collaborate on another piece, knowing that any resulting work would be compared with Oklahoma!, most likely unfavorably. They were initially reluctant to seek the rights to Liliom; Molnár had refused permission for the work to be adapted in the past, and the original ending was considered too depressing for the musical theatre. After acquiring the rights, the team created a work with lengthy sequences of music and made the ending more hopeful.
The musical required considerable modification during out-of-town tryouts, but once it opened on Broadway on April 19, 1945, it was an immediate hit with both critics and audiences. Carousel initially ran for 890 performances and duplicated its success in the West End in 1950. Though it has never achieved as much commercial success as Oklahoma!, the piece has been repeatedly revived, recorded several times and was filmed in 1956. A production by Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in 1992 in London, in 1994 in New York and on tour. Another Broadway revival opened in 2018. In 1999, Time magazine named Carousel the best musical of the 20th century.
Background[edit]
Liliom[edit]
Ferenc Molnár's Hungarian-language drama, Liliom, premiered in Budapest in 1909. The audience was puzzled by the work, and it lasted only thirty-odd performances before being withdrawn, the first shadow on Molnár's successful career as a playwright. Liliom was not presented again until after World War I. When it reappeared on the Budapest stage, it was a tremendous hit.[1]
Synopsis[edit]
Act 1[edit]
Two young female millworkers in 1873 Maine visit the town's carousel after work. One of them, Julie Jordan, attracts the attention of the barker, Billy Bigelow ("The Carousel Waltz"). When Julie lets Billy put his arm around her during the ride, Mrs. Mullin, the widowed owner of the carousel, tells Julie never to return. Julie and her friend, Carrie Pipperidge, argue with Mrs. Mullin. Billy arrives and, seeing that Mrs. Mullin is jealous, mocks her; he is fired from his job. Billy, unconcerned, invites Julie to join him for a drink. As he goes to get his belongings, Carrie presses Julie about her feelings toward him, but Julie is evasive ("You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan"). Carrie has a beau too, fisherman Enoch Snow ("(When I Marry) Mister Snow"), to whom she is newly engaged. Billy returns for Julie as the departing Carrie warns that staying out late means the loss of Julie's job. Mr. Bascombe, owner of the mill, happens by along with a policeman, and offers to escort Julie to her home, but she refuses and is fired. Left alone, she and Billy talk about what life might be like if they were in love, but neither quite confesses to the growing attraction they feel for each other ("If I Loved You").
Productions[edit]
Early productions[edit]
The original Broadway production opened at the Majestic Theatre on April 19, 1945. The dress rehearsal the day before had gone badly, and the pair feared the new work would not be well received.[52] One successful last-minute change was to have de Mille choreograph the pantomime. The movement of the carnival crowd in the pantomime had been entrusted to Mamoulian, and his version was not working.[44] Rodgers had injured his back the previous week, and he watched the opening from a stretcher propped in a box behind the curtain. Sedated with morphine, he could see only part of the stage. As he could not hear the audience's applause and laughter, he assumed the show was a failure. It was not until friends congratulated him later that evening that he realized that the curtain had been met by wild applause.[52] Bambi Linn, who played Louise, was so enthusiastically received by the audience during her ballet that she was forced to break character, when she next appeared, and bow. Rodgers' daughter Mary caught sight of her friend, Stephen Sondheim, both teenagers then, across several rows; both had eyes wet with tears.[45]
The original production ran for 890 performances, closing on May 24, 1947. The original cast included John Raitt (Billy), Jan Clayton (Julie), Jean Darling (Carrie), Eric Mattson (Enoch Snow), Christine Johnson (Nettie Fowler), Murvyn Vye (Jigger), Bambi Linn (Louise) and Russell Collins (Starkeeper). In December 1945, Clayton left to star in the Broadway revival of Show Boat and was replaced by Iva Withers; Raitt was replaced by Henry Michel in January 1947; Darling was replaced by Margot Moser.[53][54]
After closing on Broadway, the show went on a national tour for two years. It played for five months in Chicago alone, visited twenty states and two Canadian cities, covered 15,000 miles (24,000 km) and played to nearly two million people. The touring company had a four-week run at New York City Center in January 1949.[55] Following the City Center run, the show was moved back to the Majestic Theatre in the hopes of filling the theatre until South Pacific opened in early April. However, ticket sales were mediocre, and the show closed almost a month early.[56]
The musical premiered in the West End, London, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on June 7, 1950. The production was restaged by Jerome Whyte, with a cast that included Stephen Douglass (Billy), Iva Withers (Julie) and Margot Moser (Carrie). Carousel ran in London for 566 performances, remaining there for over a year and a half.[53]
Subsequent productions[edit]
Carousel was revived in 1954 and 1957 at City Center, presented by the New York City Center Light Opera Company. Both times, the production featured Barbara Cook, though she played Carrie in 1954 and Julie in 1957 (playing alongside Howard Keel as Billy). The production was then taken to Belgium to be performed at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, with David Atkinson as Billy, Ruth Kobart as Nettie, and Clayton reprising the role of Julie, which she had originated.[57]
In August 1965, Rodgers and the Music Theater of Lincoln Center produced Carousel for 47 performances. John Raitt reprised the role of Billy, with Jerry Orbach as Jigger and Reid Shelton as Enoch Snow. The roles of the Starkeeper and Dr. Seldon were played by Edward Everett Horton in his final stage appearance.[58] The following year, New York City Center Light Opera Company brought Carousel back to City Center for 22 performances, with Bruce Yarnell as Billy and Constance Towers as Julie.[57]
Nicholas Hytner directed a new production of Carousel in 1992, at London's Royal National Theatre, with choreography by Sir Kenneth MacMillan and designs by Bob Crowley. In this staging, the story begins at the mill, where Julie and Carrie work, with the music slowed down to emphasize the drudgery. After work ends, they move to the shipyards and then to the carnival.[57] As they proceed on a revolving stage, carnival characters appear, and at last the carousel is assembled onstage for the girls to ride.[59][60] Louise is seduced by the ruffian boy during her Act 2 ballet, set around the ruins of a carousel.[59] Michael Hayden played Billy not as a large, gruff man, but as a frustrated smaller one, a time bomb waiting to explode.[57] Joanna Riding (Julie) and Janie Dee (Carrie) won Olivier Awards for their performances, the production won Best Musical Revival, and Hytner won as director.[61] Patricia Routledge played Nettie.[62] Clive Rowe, as Enoch, was nominated for an Olivier Award.[63] Enoch and Carrie were cast as an interracial couple whose eight children, according to the review in The New York Times, looked like "a walking United Colors of Benetton ad".[59] The production's limited run from December 1992 through March 1993 was a sellout.[64] It re-opened at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London in September 1993, presented by Cameron Mackintosh, where it continued until May 1994.[65]
The Hytner production moved to New York's Vivian Beaumont Theater, where it opened on March 24, 1994, and ran for 322 performances.[57][59] This won five Tony Awards, including best musical revival, as well as awards for Hytner, MacMillan, Crowley and Audra McDonald (as Carrie).[66] The cast also included Sally Murphy as Julie, Shirley Verrett as Nettie, Fisher Stevens as Jigger and Eddie Korbich as Enoch.[67] Replacements for Billy included Marcus Lovett and James Barbour.[68] One change made from the London to the New York production was to have Billy strike Louise across the face, rather than on the hand. According to Hayden, "He does the one unpardonable thing, the thing we can't forgive. It's a challenge for the audience to like him after that."[69] The Hytner Carousel was presented in Japan in May 1995.[70] A U.S. national tour with a scaled-down production began in February 1996 in Houston[71] and closed in May 1997 in Providence, Rhode Island.[72] Producers sought to feature young talent on the tour,[71] with Patrick Wilson as Billy and Sarah Uriarte Berry,[73] and later Jennifer Laura Thompson, as Julie.[74]
A revival opened at London's Savoy Theatre on December 2, 2008, after a week of previews, starring Jeremiah James (Billy), Alexandra Silber (Julie) and Lesley Garrett (Nettie).[75] The production received warm to mixed reviews.[76] It closed in June 2009, a month early.[77] Michael Coveney, writing in The Independent, admired Rodgers' music but stated, "Lindsay Posner's efficient revival doesn't hold a candle to the National Theatre 1992 version".[75] A production at Theater Basel, Switzerland, in 2016 to 2017, with German dialogue, was directed by Alexander Charim and choreographed by Teresa Rotemberg. Bryony Dwyer, Christian Miedl and Cheryl Studer starred, respectively, as Julie Jordan, Billy Bigelow and Nettie Fowler.[78] A semi-staged revival by the English National Opera opened at the London Coliseum in 2017. The production was directed by Lonny Price, conducted by David Charles Abell, and starred Alfie Boe as Billy, Katherine Jenkins as Julie and Nicholas Lyndhurst as the Starkeeper. The production received mixed to positive reviews.[79]
The third Broadway revival began previews on February 28, 2018 at the Imperial Theatre and officially opened on April 12. It closed on September 16, 2018.[80] The production starred Jessie Mueller, Joshua Henry, Renée Fleming, Lindsay Mendez and Alexander Gemignani. The production was directed by Jack O'Brien and choreographed by Justin Peck.[81] The songs "Geraniums in the Winder" and "There's Nothin' So Bad for a Woman" were cut from this revival.[82] Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times, "The tragic inevitability of Carousel has seldom come across as warmly or as chillingly as it does in this vividly reimagined revival. ... [W]ith thoughtful and powerful performances by Mr. Henry and Ms. Mueller, the love story at the show's center has never seemed quite as ill-starred or, at the same time, as sexy. ... [T]he Starkeeper ... assumes new visibility throughout, taking on the role of Billy's angelic supervisor." Brantley strongly praised the choreography, all the performances and the designers. He was unconvinced, however, by the "mother-daughter dialogue that falls so abrasively on contemporary ears", where Julie tries to justify loving an abusive man, and other scenes in Act 2, particularly those set in heaven, and the optimism of the final scene.[83] Most of the reviewers agreed that while the choreography and performances (especially the singing) were excellent, characterizing the production as sexy and sumptuous, O'Brien's direction did little to help the show deal with modern sensibilities about men's treatment of women, instead indulging in nostalgia.[84]
From July to September 2021 the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London is presenting a staging by its artistic director Timothy Sheader, with choreography by Drew McOnie. The cast included Carly Bawden as Julie, Declan Bennett as Billy and Joanna Riding as Nettie.[85]
Music and recordings[edit]
Musical treatment[edit]
Rodgers designed Carousel to be an almost continuous stream of music, especially in Act 1. In later years, Rodgers was asked if he had considered writing an opera. He stated that he had been sorely tempted to, but saw Carousel in operatic terms. He remembered, "We came very close to opera in the Majestic Theatre. ... There's much that is operatic in the music."[90]