Carousel is Rodgers and Hammerstein's ambitious, emotionally complex musical set among the fishing villages of coastal Maine, centered on Billy Bigelow, a swaggering, hot-tempered carousel barker whose whirlwind romance with the gentle millworker Julie Jordan costs them both their jobs and respectability. Unable to provide for Julie and their coming child, and cornered by desperation, Billy takes part in a robbery that goes fatally wrong, leaving Julie a widow and their daughter to grow up under the shadow of her father's disgrace. Given a chance from beyond death to return to earth for one day and make amends, Billy must find a way to reach the daughter he never knew and the wife he wronged. The score, featuring "If I Loved You," "June Is Bustin' Out All Over," and the soaring "You'll Never Walk Alone," is considered among Rodgers and Hammerstein's finest, marrying gorgeous melody to genuinely dark subject matter including domestic abuse and mortality. Its willingness to grapple with flawed, difficult characters within the conventions of a golden-age musical has kept it both beloved and, at times, controversial.

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