Carousel review – admirably restores musical classic to the opera house

Richard Rodgers stated that Carousel was among his favourite creations and the closest he came to writing an opera. That claim has never been better validated than by Jo Davies’s deservedly popular Opera North production, now out for its third spin following an acclaimed run in Paris.

What’s remarkable about the show is how its vividly animated sense of a small seaboard community puts one in mind of another music drama about a neurotic fishing village on the other side of Atlantic, also from 1945. Is there a case to be made for the ne’er-do-well Billy Bigelow as a New England Peter Grimes, an ostracised, self-destructive figure prone to inflicting violence on the things he loves?

Britten’s piece, of course, is out-and-out tragedy. Although Carousel was pretty dark for Broadway at the time, it is tempered by the bizarre coda in which Billy, having done time in purgatory, is granted a day back on Earth to redeem his history of domestic violence. Keith Higham does a persuasive job of fleshing out the character’s contradictions in the famous soliloquy in which he reasons: “You can have fun with a son, but you’ve got to be a father to a daughter.” Shame that his idea of fatherhood is to return from the dead to give her a slap as well.

As Billy’s long-suffering paramour, Julie Jordan, Gillene Butterfield has a harder task convincing a modern audience that the blows are really signs of affection. But it’s pleasing that this engaging young singer has been promoted from the Opera North chorus to a leading role. Stuart Neal is a splendidly louche new addition as the bad penny Jigger, while Yvonne Howard, reprising her role as matriarchal Nettie, continues on her mission to reclaim You’ll Never Walk Alone from the terraces and restore it to the opera house.