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6. Ballet on Broadway. Most musicals contain choreographed production numbers featuring spectacular dancing along with the singing. But Rodgers and Hammerstein's first great hits, Oklahoma! (1943) and Carousel (1945), went one further by including "dream ballets" which actually advance the narrative in balletic terms. In between came Fancy Free, the standalone ballet by Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein, and the musical that grew out of it, On the Town (both 1944). The close conjunction of these four works is our cue to look more deeply at the function of dance on the Broadway stage.

The Carousel ballet, originally over 40 minutes long, addresses a problem unusual for a musical in that it covers a gap of 16 years and the death of the leading character. Is it enough to address the considerable moral issues raised in the earlier part of the play? rb.

 
The script, videos, and images will be posted immediately after class.

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Q AND A

Why is the Carousel overture based on only one tune?
Unlike most Broadway shows at the time, Carousel began with an overture intended to be played with the curtain up, while the carnival world is created before your eyes by action onstage. The Carousel Waltz was the obvious piece to achieve that.

Isn't the whole point of ballet that it is not realistic?
Although there are several actual ballets that flirt with realism, dance as a whole is not a realstic medium. My point in asking questions about reality was mainly in order to classify. Think of the three dance episodes that I played from Oklahoma!. The barn-dance is realistic in that is develops from the kind of dancing that folks would do in a real-life barn dance. "Kansas City" grows naturally out of characters and the situation, but breaks through into a different medium for sheer entertainment. But the Dream Ballet is transcendent; it deals with imagination and emotion, not with everyday reality at all; it can do this only because the ballet medium is intrinsically unrealistic.

Given this, how does the ballet work in Carousel?
Like the Ferenc Molnár play, Carousel challenges the audience with an unusually difficult situation: the protagonist dead from suicide after being revealed as a wife-beater and a thief. This cannot easily be resolved by normal narrative means; it requires transcendence. Molnár achieves this partly by allowing the lapse of 16 years, much as Shakespeare did in his late plays such as The Winter's Tale. He also moves out of the everyday world by showing Billy in an imaginary one, polishing the stars. Rodgers and Hammerstein have another form of transcendence available to them: ballet. I had hoped to show that, by shifting to a less realistic medium, ballet bridges the gap. But I am not entirely convinced that it does; since it deals only with new characters (Louise and the Starlight Carnival barker), it doesn't directly involve either Billy or Julie, who are the couple who really need to reconcile. Which brings me on to the last question….

How does Carousel end?
The final scene that I played from the movie, when Billy speaks to Louise and then to Julie as they are singing "You'll never walk alone, also occurs in the musical; you can see it in the Lincoln Center version here. I asked if this was enough to put the unresolved issues to rest; the tears in many of your eyes said "yes"; I myself am not so sure.

Is it worth my while doing these Q&As?
I have written these question-and-answer updates after most classes so far, which is a lot of work, but nobody has mentioned them. If you appreciate them, or even if you disagree with what I said, please let me know.

 
VIDEO LINKS

All the clips I showed in class were taken from the YouTube sources listed here. I have also included a good number of extras (all *asterisked). For Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, there is a dancer's commentary clip like the one I showed for Fancy Free. For Oklahoma, I show stage alternatives to all the movie scenes, plus some other things I found interesting. For Fancy Free, I have two other performances of the Second Sailor's solo and a documentary of how the ballet has changed over time. For On the Town, I have one blurry example of what I think is the original Robbins choreography, plus another version of the "Miss Turnstiles" dance (although this is neither Bernstein nor Robbins). The Liliom clip is taken from the complete movie, starting slightly earlier than in class.

For the Carousel scenes shown in class, I continue to juggle between the 1956 movie and the 2013 Lincoln Center concert; the links below also include the one I didn't play. Plus many additions: (a) some clips of the 1993 Nicholas Hytner production first seen in London, blurry but the only stage production available; (b) two stunning clips of Justin Peck's choreography from the 2018 Broadway revival; (c) a couple of standalone ballets derived from the show, but not intended to go into it; and (d) two commentaries, one informative, one provocative.

All the movie clips in fact lead to the complete film—but beware! Only Oklahoma! was supervised by its original creative team, and can thus be taken as an authentic translation of the Boadway show. The film of Carousel makes significant changes in narrative structure, plot details, and musical texture. And On the Town replaces most of the music and all the choreography, and was boycotted by its original creators. Both films of Slaughter on Tenth Avenue put the piece in a rather different context—but then Balanchine himself changed its entire mood when he remade it as a standalone ballet. rb.

SLAUGHTER ON TENTH AVENUE
  Original choreography   * 1939 film (with Vera Zorina)
  Balanchine standalone version   * Second pas-de-deux (with commentary by Sarah Mearns)
* Second pas-de-deux (Miami Ballet promo)
  In Words and Music, (1949)   * Shorter version (same music, but much altered)
 
OKLAHOMA
  Kansas City   * Movie 1955, full number (Gene Nelson as Will Parker)
* London stage revival, 1998 (Jimmy Johnson as Will)
  Barn Dance   * Movie 1955, full number
* London stage revival, 1998 (directed by Trevor Nunn)
  Dream Ballet   * Movie 1955, full number
* London stage revival, 1998 (choreography by Susan Stroman)
  Other scenes   * "Many a new day," full number (dance break in ballet style)
* Jud's song, "Lonely room" (London 1998, a more sympathetic view)
* Moral analysis of the show
 
FANCY FREE
  The ballet as a whole   * Complete (1986 NYCB revival; rather blurry)
* Jacob's Pillow documentary (compares original and modern revival)
  Second Sailor's solo   * Mikhail Baryshnikov (grainy but good!)
* Tiler Angle, with commentary (as shown in class)
* Stéphane Bullion with Paris Opéra (the crispest of all)
 
ON THE TOWN
  Opening scene   * Movie 1949 (Gene Kelly choreography)
  Imaginary Coney Island   * Stage revival (blurry, but genuine Robbins)
  Miss Turnstiles   * Movie 1949, with Vera-Ellen (Gene Kelly choreography)
* Revival 2014, with Megan Fairchild (rehearsal with Joshua Bergasse)
* Revival 2014, with Misty Copeland (stage performance of the above)
 
LILIOM
  Complete film   * Cued to just before we started in class (Charles Farrell and Rose Hobart)
 
CAROUSEL, SCENES SHOWN IN CLASS (PLUS ALTERNATES)
  Bench scene   * Movie, 1955 (Shirley Jones, Gordon MacRae; with cuts)
* Lincoln Center, 2013, with commentary (Kelli O'Hara, Nathan Gunn)
* Commentary by Leonard Maslon (as quoted in the above)
  Louise's ballet   * Movie, 1955 (Susan Luckey, Jacques d'Amboise)
* Lincoln Center, 2013 (Tiler Peck, Robert Fairchild)
  Closing sequence   * Movie, 1955 (equivalent of scene shown in class)
* Lincoln Center, 2013 (Starts at very end of the sequence from class)
 
CAROUSEL, OTHER ITEMS
  Nicholas Hytner, 1993   * Opening scene in London (blurry, but only stage version available)
* Press reels from Broadway version (shorter versions of many numbers)
  Justin Peck, 2018   * Montage
* "Blow high, blow low" (complete number, cut from the movie)
  Standalone ballets   * Sir Kenneth MacMillan (Mayara Magri, Matthew Ball, Royal Ballet)
* Chrisopher Wheeldon (excerpt, Pacific Northwest Ballet)
  Commentary   * Creation of the show (documentary by Leonard Maslon)
* Why Carousel went terribly wrong (critique of the film)
           
IMAGES
The thumbnails below cover the slides shown in class, though there may be a few small discrepancies. Click the thumbnail to see a larger image.
Click on the right or left of the larger picture to go forward or back, or outside it to close.
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 
Class slides  Class slides  Class slides 

 
ARTISTS

Here are brief bios of the artists, composers, and writers considered in the class, listed in order of birth.

Ferenc Molnár, 1878–1952. Hungarian writer.
 
Born in Budapest (as Ferenc Neumann), the son of a prosperous doctor, he started writing in high school, but entered the legal profession. He abandoned law in 1896 to pursue a literary career. Although writing in most media, he became best known as a playwright. His Liliom (1909) was a great success in New York and became the basis of several films and Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel (1945). He fled to America in 1940 to escape the Holocaust.
Oscar Hammerstein II, 1895–1960. American lyricist.
 
Oscar Hammerstein's father, a German immigrant, was manager of the Metropolitan Opera and active also on Broadway. His son quickly established a career as lyricist, working with Rudolf Friml, Sigmund Romberg, Jerome Kern (Show Boat, 1926), and a very long partnership with Richard Rodgers from Oklahoma! (1943) to The Sound of Music (1959).
Richard Rodgers, 1902–79. American composer.
 
The composer of 43 Broadway shows, Rodgers virtually defined the American musical in the middle decades of the 20th century. His collaboration with Lorenz Hart produced witty works such as On Your oes (1936) and Pal Joey (1940), but his collaborations with Oscar Hammerstein II, beginning with Oklahoma! in 1943, brought a new kind of drama, developing a single narrative line and focusing more on character.
George Balanchine, 1904–83. Georgian-American choreographer.
 
After work with Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, including the pioneering neo-classical Apollon musagète (1928, with Stravinsky) and The Prodigal Son (1929, with Prokofiev), he moved to America, where he eventually co-founded the New York City Ballet, remaining its artistic director for 35 years. One of the most influential choreographers of the century, he is especially noted for his abstract works with minimal decor but the greatest musicality.
Agnes de Mille, 1905–93. American choreographer.
 
Agnes was born to a theatrical family in NYC, the niece of Hollywood director Cecil B. De Millle. While studying dance in LA as a part-time avocation, she got early experience in her uncle's films. Only after graduating from UCLA in English, did she turn to dance professionally, joining the Ballet Theater as a dancer and choreographer (including Aaron Copland's Rodeo) before moving onto Broadway with Oklahoma! (1943), Carousel (1945), Brigadoon (1947), and others.
Leonard Bernstein, 1918–90. American conductor and composer.
 
Winning fame relatively young as conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Bernstein also reached wide audiences with his music lectures on television. His work as a composer ranges from Broadway musicals such as West Side Story (1957) through symphonies, operas, and his multi-media Mass (1971).
Jerome Robbins, 1918–98. American choreographer and director.
 
Beginning his career as a dancer and later choreographer with the American Ballet Theatre, Robbins later joined forces with Balanchine in the New York City Ballet. While he created numerous ballets in the classical tradition, his career on Broadway and in film is at least as important, including his work on West Side Story in both media.

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