About the work
Carousel is a musical by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics and book), premiered on Broadway in 1945. Based on Ferenc Molnár's play Liliom, it is regarded as one of the duo's most mature and musically ambitious works. Rodgers himself called it his own favourite musical.
Plot
In a coastal town in New England, the young mill worker Julie Jordan falls in love with the charming but hot-tempered carousel barker Billy Bigelow. The two marry, but Billy, unemployed and overwhelmed by impending fatherhood, is lured into a robbery that ends fatally. From a kind of afterlife, Billy is granted the chance to return to earth for a single day, to meet his now-grown daughter and Julie and leave behind something good.
Cultural significance
Carousel expanded the possibilities of the musical through its serious themes—domestic violence, death, redemption—and its artfully through-composed scenes such as the Bench Scene and the extended Soliloquy. The anthem You'll Never Walk Alone became famous far beyond the theatre. The work is regarded as a milestone of the "integrated musical," in which plot, music, and dance merge organically.