Oklahoma! is one of the all time great musical plays of the twentieth century. For 15 years it held the record as the longest running musical on Broadway. Scouts for New York City backers had reported that it would be a flop. But after the rousing centerpiece title song of the show was added, complete with a dance sequence for the folk of the new state of Oklahoma, the show became a smash hit. It is based on the play Green Grow the Lilacs by Lynn Riggs, whose text was closely followed, and whose poetic images inspired some of the lyrics to the songs of the show. It is a simple and refreshing love story with an Americana bucolic background. Cowhands, farmers, and rustic characters liven the plot, and ballet sequences add artistry and energy everywhere. There is a comic secondary pair of lovers, a shifty charlatan, and a vile, evil force in the person of Jud Fry, who strikes delicious fear into the sentimental story, but also provides the romantic lead with some comic opportunities. The music is refreshing, upbeat, and filled with dance idioms. The songs contain clever lyrics full of humor and romantic poetry. At the time of the premiere, March 31, 1943, the public psyche was overwhelmed by the immensity of the war, and sought refuge in this story of simpler times and simpler people.

Rodgers and Hart had been a highly successful team for nearly 20 years, and wrote almost 30 shows together. When the project of Oklahoma! was offered to Hart, he turned it down. Richard Rodgers sought help from an old friend of his named Oscar Hammerstein II. Oklahoma! was the first of many collaborations between Rodgers and Hammerstein, which made them as famous a duo as Rodgers and Hart had been. Hammerstein wrote the book that on which the show was based. Agnes de Mille was responsible for the choreography, and Robert Russell Bennett orchestrated the score.

The original Broadway cast included Alfred Drake and Joan Roberts in the lead roles, with Howard da Silva, Celeste Holm, and Lee Dixon as Jud Fry, Ado Annie Carnes, and Will Parker respectively. In 1955, a classic film version of Oklahoma! starred Gordon McRae as Curly and the effervescent Shirley Jones as the lovable Miss Laurey. Rod Steiger is terrifying as Jud Fry. Laurey's dream sequence in which she envisions her conflict between Jud and Curly through a ballet medium, is poetically memorable.

© Rita Laurance, Rovi

Act 1 - 2.Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'

The song "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" is without doubt one of the most famous to come from the renowned team of Rodgers and Hammerstein. It also occupies a unique place in their collaborative work: it was the first song in their first Broadway production, the hugely successful and pioneering 1943 musical Oklahoma! Moreover, it quickly became one of the most popular American songs to emerge from the wartime era, gaining currency away from Broadway first on the radio and recordings, and then later on numerous television variety shows. The highly successful 1955 film version of Oklahoma!, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, served to popularize it further.

In the story it is sung by Curly, a handsome ranch hand whose brimming optimism is perfectly captured by Rodgers' ebullient music and Hammerstein's buoyant pastoral lyrics. The famous melody comes in the refrain, which begins with the title lyrics, "Oh, what a beautiful mornin'." The contour of Rodgers' melody here, while not without some angularity, seems ever on the rise, and Hammerstein's lyrics match the effervescence of its mostly ascending character with joyous images of sun-soaked meadows and tall rows of corn—and with Curly's sense that "Ev'rything's goin' my way." This was a most fitting song to launch the careers of the most successful composer/lyricist team in the history of Broadway musical theater.

© Robert Cummings, Rovi