“Carousel” is the story of nice girl Julie, who falls for the barker, who marries her and then proceeds to make a mess of both their lives. These early minutes are indeed memorable, but subsequently the production tends toward theatrical letdown, despite a really wonderful barker in Pasquale’s Billy and some of the best music and lyrics that Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein ever wrote.
Just settle into that gilded deco marvel, the Civic Opera House, during those opening minutes when these two accomplished actors telegraph the show’s essential vibe, and you get a clear sense of what’s in store.Īs the show fires up under conductor David Chase, a parade of swirling circus tents glides into view and their canvases lift to briefly peekaboo the wonders inside.
There is also the grand spectacle that the Lyric Opera itself offers. Mullin, a tough-girl Roxie now worn into middle age, still a sucker for a fella. The show’s standout performers are Steven Pasquale in a breathtaking turn as a handsome young punk you want to root for in spite of yourself, and Charlotte d’Amboise, an extraordinary dancer and actor whose every move’s a marvel, as the long-limbed Mrs. The best aspects of this effort - the third of five Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals abloom at the Lyric in successive springtime musical theater initiatives - are on display in those first few minutes. Mullin step out from her trailer together, for a mutual after-the-act smoke.
To the tune of a dizzying musical prelude that would put any innocent young thing into a heightened state, the Lyric Opera of Chicago is set aswirl around a wordless pantomime: Handsome carney barker Billy Bigelow – every father’s nightmare – and scantily clad carnival owner Mrs. The opening of this “Carousel” has everything going for it as the new Rob Ashford production lays out in the plainest way possible what a high-stakes risk your average town takes when the traveling circus rolls in. Tune in for a radiocast, from opening night, on June 15, ★★★ By Nancy Malitz “Carousel” by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, produced by the Lyric Opera of Chicago through May 3.
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