Release Date: 31 July 2005
Label: Naxos - Nostalgia / Naxos Nostalgic
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943278024
Genres: Jazz
Description
Carousel Original Broadway Cast, 1945Allegro Original Broadway Cast, 1947Music by Richard Rodgers Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein IIShortly after the opening of Oklahoma!,Hollywood producer Sam Goldwyn phonedRichard Rodgers with a piece of advice.'Oklahoma! is such a wonderful show. Youknow what you should do next? Shoot yourself.'Beneath the typical Goldwyn tactlessness,there was a germ of truth. Oklahoma! hadbecome the kind of smash hit never seen beforein the musical theatre. How could Rodgers andHammerstein possibly follow it?The answer was simple: they wouldn'tfollow it. Their next two works for the stagewere radically varied in style and created adistinctive pair of shows.Carousel is arguably one of the greatest ofall American musicals, and Allegro, while aprofoundly flawed piece, contained theatricalelements that would come to fruition decadeslater in shows like Cabaret,Company andFollies.The actual idea for Carousel originated withThe Theatre Guild, the producing organizationwho had been saved from financial insolvencyby the success of Oklahoma! Theresa Helburnand Lawrence Langner, the heads of the Guild,met once a week with Rodgers and Hammersteinfor a lunch where they discussed issues of casting,production etc related to their current hit.About eight months after Oklahoma! hadopened, Helburn asked Rodgers and Hammersteinif they would be interested in turningFerenc Molnar's Liliom, a show they had firstproduced in 1921, into their next project.Rodgers and Hammerstein's immediatereaction was negative. They had seen the recent1940 revival starring Burgess Meredith and IngridBergman in the story of an ill-starred Hungariancarnival barker with a tragic life. They couldn'tvisualize it as a musical, both because of its drabsetting and its relentlessly downbeat story.But Helburn persisted and suggested theymove it to New Orleans. Hammerstein resisted,not wanting to create ersatz Cajun dialogue, buthe started to investigate the story morethoroughly.It was the realization he could turn Liliom'ssoliloquy where he learns his wife is pregnantand wonders what kind of a father he'll makeinto a substantial musical theatre aria that madeHammerstein change his mind about the project.And when Rodgers suggested shifting thelocale to a New England fishing village,everything seemed to fall into place. The showwas now set on the coast on Maine in 1873 andLiliom became Billy Bigelow, although hisprofession as a carnival barker remained thesame. The central attraction of his carnival, acarousel, gave the musical its new title.Anxious to duplicate the triumph they hadknown with Oklahoma!,The Theatre Guildassembled as many of the same creativepersonnel as possible. Director RoubenMamoulian and choreographer Agnes De Milleheaded the list, although the two of them hadcordially detested each other working on theearlier show and had to both vow to be on theirbest behavior this time around.Miles White remained on as CostumeDesigner, but Jo Mielziner replaced Lemuel Ayers
Tracklisting
John Mccormack
J. Grenfell
Ivor Novello
Ives, Burl
Harry Belafonte
Guy Mitchell
Gracie Fields
George Formby
