Streaming now: Carousel (Live from Lincoln Center) Through September 8 at 8pm EDT / 1am BST (2013, shows)

[mike1003]

Carousel (Live from Lincoln Center)

Through September 8 at 8pm EDT / 1am BST
Like many Rodgers and Hammerstein shows, 1945's Carousel is darker than many people remember. In 19th-century Maine, the moony Julie Jordan is drawn, moth to flame, to the charismatic carnival barker Billy Bigelow; their unhappy marriage is set against a seemingly idyllic seaside world of busting-out-all-over Junes and real nice clambakes. Although Billy's domestic violence is treated as a deep moral failure, the show's treatment of the question understandably raises hackles. But this 2013 New York Philharmonic concert staging, recorded for Live From Lincoln Center, offers a stately and stirring account of the material, flawed though it may be. Top Broadway stars (Kelli O’Hara as Julie, Jessie Mueller and Jason Danieley as the secondary couple, John Cullum as the Starkeeper) share the stage with opera headliners (Nathan Gunn as Billy, Stephanie Blythe as Julie's close cousin Nettie).

[Coney]

Thank you for posting this link. I really enjoyed it. Rogers and Hammerstein shows, thanks to Hammerstein, tackled all sorts of social problems. Carousel portrayed domestic violence and the theme of racism was introduced in South Pacific. Despite the stereotypes and datedness, Flower Drum Song deals with generation gaps, hanging on to old world traditions, and assimilation, concepts that most American middle-class families were dealing with during American 1950s.