Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel has returned to Broadway in a production NPR calls, "The best musical of the season, by far."
Three-time Tony Award winner Jack O'Brien's "sumptuous revival is a high-water mark of classic American musical theater" (Time Out). Starring Tony nominee Joshua Henry, Tony winner Jessie Mueller and four-time Grammy winner Renee Fleming, with choreography by New York City Ballet's Justin Peck, "this ravishing Carousel tingles with the rapture of life in all its contradictions" (The New York Times).
Set in a small New England factory town, Carousel describes the tragic romance between a troubled carnival barker and the woman who gives up everything for him. With a score full of "the theater's most beautiful and enduring songs" (Variety), brought to life through "choreography that would send Rodgers & Hammerstein themselves into waves of happy shivers" (The Washington Post), this incandescently staged story of passion, loss and redemption is "one of the most moving experiences in all of musical theater" (New York Magazine).
"God is in Carousel," raves The Chicago Tribune. "It's the greatest musical ever written." Don't miss this ecstatically acclaimed production of one of musical theater's rarest treasures. "What a gift to have it back on Broadway" (The Hollywood Reporter).
A remarkable aspect of O'Brien's production - and of Henry's staggering, soulful performance, which is this revival's smoldering core - is that even in our current moment of heightened attention toward mistreatment of women, in which a hot-tempered man like Billy might seem an automatic villain, there's a tormented helplessness to this doomed, rootless transient that makes you understand Julie's surrender. Even when she swallows her shame and makes excuses for his reprehensible behavior; it's almost as if in choosing to love him she has chosen to be an outsider like him too.
It took real guts for the lead producers and director Jack O'Brien to revive Rodgers and Hammerstein's 'Carousel,' which opened Thursday at the Imperial Theatre. Theatergoers still speak with hushed reference about Nicholas Hytner's phenomenal 'Carousel' revival, imported from the National Theatre to Lincoln Center Theatre in 1994. The good news is that we don't have to choose which version is more perfect. Enjoy the memory of Hytner's show and make sure you don't miss O'Brien's.
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