Only one thing could equal the "wow!" factor of seeing and hearing a youngish Hugh Jackman launch into “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’“ at the start of the National Theatre’s 1998 staging of Oklahoma!: John Wilson and his orchestra trilling and swooning their perfectly-balanced way through the Overture at the Proms. Three and a quarter hours later, you might have felt you'd heard some of those tunes at least twice too often, and you might also have questioned, despite excellent work from nearly all concerned, whether it was such a beautiful mornin’ after all. When you get all the original dialogue – and, in the Albert Hall, at least, can’t hear half of it, nor much of the lyrics – there’s a distinctly lopsided quality about Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1943 breakthrough.
Much has been written – including in the programme – about the apple-pie wholesomeness of Oscar Hammerstein II’s lyrics after those of Rodgers’ more acidic former collaborator Lorenz Hart. But is that such a good thing? They eventually get an upset, but not until we’ve had reams of Hicksville cuteness and we wonder when and if the plot is going to start. Great melodies, sure, but good drama? You rooted, of course, for Nathaniel Hackmann’s walk-the-bow-legged-walk cowman Curly: less of a looker than Jackman, but with the perfect, suave, post-Howard-Keel baritone of a voice. Less so, perhaps, for Scarlet Strallen’s Laurey, who’s crazy for him but won’t admit it: she’s a fine and sympathetic actor, but years of taking the chest voice high in the musicals don’t allow a sweet lyric-soprano top (the two pictured below).The subsidiary love triangle quickly starts to pall, as Marcus Brigstocke, unrecognisable without his trademark specs, rasps his way through pedlar Ali Hakim’s dialogue; there’s way too much business between him, Lizzy Connolly’s Ado Annie – inevitably a cliché, but nicely and clearly done – and Robert Fairchild’s Will Parker. But boy, can that Fairchild dance: fouettés and all. You’re not surprised when you read in the programme that he was classically trained and a lead in New York City Ballet.
The first dance sequence, for “Kansas City”, is a winner as a result (pictured below), but choreographer Alastair David doesn’t go much beyond the stock thereafter, despite homages to the original work by Agnes de Mille. That was a drawback when you’ve got a climactic quarter-of-an-hour dream sequence at the end of the first act (good fight scene, though). Musically, it’s mostly reprises, with one startling dissonant transformation of Curly’s niceness towards the end.Nor does Rachel Kavanaugh’s full staging, with minimal but telling props, go beyond what you might have expected in 1943 (could you take Oklahoma! out of its setting? Probably not, though I’d like to see a kids’ version set in a playground). There is, at least, an attempt to make the odd man out, Jud Fry, rival for Laurey’s affections, believably warped by people’s indifference or hatred towards him. Sure, he turns out psychopathic, but I don’t suppose I was the only one deeply uneasy about Curly’s suggestion in his first encounter with him that he might hang himself and get people sorrier for him in death then they were in life. This is where Rodgers’ harmonies – including a queasy upward chromatic shift – and Robert Russell Bennett's orchestrations take an interesting turn for “Jud Fry is Dead”, nasty bully-boy taunting here when the object isn't an obvious thug.
Jud’s “Lonely Room” with its clashing semitones in the clarinets and David Seadon-Young vocally yearning in a not unsympathetic way sets up potential for the character to be further developed (I wonder if Britten, with his focus on the outsider, knew Oklahoma!). Unfortunately it isn’t, not musically at least, and the Act Two structure is uncomfortable. “The Farmer and the Cowman” is a lively divertissment at the start, very well done here, but you can’t feel relaxed about the title song knowing that the denouement is long overdue. Jud dies – no spoiler there – and after a dodgy acquittal of Curly for his accidental knifing of his opponent, the married couple can depart for their honeymoon in the surrey with the fringe on top.Well, it’s nobody’s fault at the Proms if that feels weird in the wrong sort of way, though you might have wished the usual shears to hand in the dialogue – odd that musical theatre veers in the opposite direction with spoken dialogue to the operatic world, where the inclination is to cut ruthlessly – rather than Wilson’s insistence on the full recreation of the original show (the conductor pictured above). He kept his hand-picked players on their toes, with a bit of extra showmanship for the crowds well earned. Glossy divided strings sang their hearts out with vintage vibrato and portamento; sassy work from the brass and the piquant twang of guitar and banjo added to the pleasure.
In short, everyone acted, sang, played and danced their cotton socks off, and the pass-remarkable, singalong audience members around me loved every minute, though I suspect that folk watching live on TV or listening on the radio heard a lot more of the words than we did. I'd still like to see Oklahoma! done chamber-style, following the runaway successes of the Arcola Carousel and the Young Vic's Annie Get Your Gun. Amplification was certainly better than in last year’s disastrously miked Fiddler on the Roof, at least allowing the timbre of the voices to emerge, but it was still a bit of a blur. One very good reason for having surtitles even when the text is nominally Oklahoma English. Unfortunately the successful experiment for Khovanshchina was a one-off; the Proms won’t be using them again this season. Write to the BBC if you think that’s a cop-out.