Carousel was the second
stage musical by the team of
Richard Rodgers (music) and
Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics). The work premiered in 1945 and 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 attempts a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; when it goes wrong, he has 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 among all his musicals.
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, and has been recorded several times. A production by
Nicholas Hytner enjoyed success in 1992 in London, in 1994 in New York and on tour. In 1999,
Time magazine named
Carousel the best musical of the 20th century
