A dysfunctional relationship, suicide, gender war, the stark class distinctions that separated mill workers and fisherfolk from the ambitious, bourgeois capitalists of an 1870s coastal village in Maine, the pain suffered by an innocent, fatherless daughter at the hands of contemptuous children — not what theatergoers in Boston and Broadway expected when Rodgers and Hammer-stein's "Carousel" opened in 1945.
The richness of Richard Rodgers's music, the depth and pathos of the lyrics and narrative adapted by Oscar Hanmmer-stein II directly from Ferenc Molnar's 1909 play "Liliom" — all this has vaulted "Carousel" into a class by itself.
It's a quasi-operatic work that, unlike its somewhat quaint precedessor "Oklahoma!" seems ever more relevant and affecting for today's audiences.
After all, "it's about sex and violence," declared British director Nicholas Hytner in 1992 as he prepared to mount a revival for the Royal National Theatre of Britain that was transplanted to Lincoln Center two years later and greeted as a revelation by critics and audiences. The onetime critical view of "Carousel" as overly sentimental has been vanquished.
It's a thoroughly modern and authentic version of "Carousel" that conductor Keith Lockhart, the Boston Pops, members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and a cast of Broadway pros mixed with young professionals studying at the Tanglewood Music Center bring to the stage of Tanglewood's Shed on Tuesday evening.
Enjoy this holiday season with the great sounds of the Boston Pops Orchestra from Holiday Pops - an appropriately titled album for this time of year.
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Are you curious to learn what it's like to be a conductor? Here's where you can learn a little bit about Keith. Read the most recent edition of Ask Keith. Click on the email address below and send in your question, then check back to see if yours was one of the questions he answered. Ask Keith today: AskKeith@KeithLockhart.com
