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.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.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withdrawn, the first shadow on Molnár's successful career as a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. Carousel (musical) Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter