History of Carousel
When Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II began work on Carousel, they feared that critics would compare it to Oklahoma!, their highly successful musical adaptation of Lynn Rigg’s play Green Grow the Lilacs. For their second work, Rodgers remembers that, “The idea originated with Terry Helburn and Lawrence Langner, [co-directors of the Theatre Guild]. In 1921 the Theatre Guild had produced a play called Liliom by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár. Simply put, Terry Helburn and Lawrence Langner felt that Oscar and I could do for Liliom what we had already done for Green Grow the Lilacs.”
Initially, Molnár refused to give Rodgers and Hammerstein permission to use his play; Molnár had previously denied several other requests to set Liliom to music, including one from Giacomo Puccini. Rodgers and Hammerstein invited Molnár to a performance of Oklahoma!, which he thought so “charming and tasteful” that he decided to grant them the rights to adapt Liliom.
Despite the novel’s international popularity and critical acclaim, Rodgers and Hammerstein were concerned about the success of Liliom as a musical. They referred to Liliom’s pessimistic ending as “the tunnel in the story through which we could see no light at the end.” They decided to give their musical a less heartbreaking ending in order to lift the spirits of American audiences, who turned to musicals as an escape from the tragedies of World War II. Anxious for the author’s reaction to their alterations, Rodgers and Hammerstein were pleasantly surprised that upon seeing Carousel, Molnár exclaimed, “What you have done is so beautiful. And you know what I like best? The ending!” Carousel was the personal favorite of Rodgers and Hammerstein and is widely regarded as their most artistically original and poignant work.
–Stephen Raskauskas
