Recording of the Week, Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel from John Wilson and Sinfonia of London

A year on from their barnstorming recording of Oklahoma!, John Wilson and Sinfonia of London continue their Rodgers & Hammerstein project with the duo’s second hit musical: darker in tone than its predecessor, Carousel charts the ill-fated relationship between Maine mill-worker Julie Jordan and unstable carnival-barker Billy Bigelow, which spirals into domestic violence, armed robbery, suicide and a quest for redemption from beyond the grave.

I could easily expend my entire word-count on the myriad details which Wilson draws out from the opening Carousel Waltz, a little masterpiece of music-drama all on its own: this is no curtain-down overture, but instead a brilliantly-crafted backdrop for the initial encounter between Billy and Julie at the fairground where he works.

As the merry-go-round creaks into life, shrill woodwinds and ever-so-slightly off-centre tuning suggest that this ‘old pleasure-boat’ (like its owner Mrs Mullin) is in need of a ‘new coat of paint’ – but once the star-crossed lovers lock eyes the music soars above their tawdry surroundings with an operatic scale and sweep which twice brought tears to my eyes. And underpinning it all is an air of menace (superbly conveyed by the snarling low brass) which put me rather in mind of Ravel’s La valse: no stopping this ride because you want to get off…

The orchestral riches don’t recede once the singers take centre-stage. As with Oklahoma!, Wilson includes every last bit of what he terms the ‘connective tissue’ of the score, and hearing the piece in its uncut glory with Don Walker’s original orchestrations points up its kinship with another groundbreaking work centring on a volatile misfit’s doomed struggle to buy peace, acceptance and domestic stability in a tough fishing-village: Britten’s Peter Grimes, which opened across the Atlantic six weeks after the premiere of Carousel. One of the most striking passages is the exhilarating extended entr’acte following the whalers' chorus ‘Blow high, blow low’: a Sea Interlude, if you will, which delivers bracing thrills aplenty but also highlights the central role which the ocean plays in the precarious economic life of this community.

The cast, largely made up of Wilson regulars, has no weak link. At the heart of it all is Nathaniel Hackmann as Billy, a far more complex assignment than Curly in Oklahoma!, and one which he grabs by the scruff of the neck. In the ‘Bench Scene’ (which flowers into ‘If I loved you’) he conveys the vulnerability and insecurity which lurk beneath the bullish exterior as he questions whether he’s capable of feeling or inspiring genuine affection, and the great Soliloquy in which he grapples with the prospect of fatherhood is beautifully nuanced.

It's easy to see why this damaged, destructive man is drawn to Mikaela Bennett’s sensual, unusually spirited Julie: despite her friend Carrie’s pronouncement that she’s ‘quieter and deeper than a well’, in the early scenes she comes across as a self-possessed, fun-loving young woman who can give as good as she gets when confronted with fragile masculinity, which makes her eventual stoic acceptance of Billy’s abuse all the more heartbreaking. Usually cast as romantic leads, Sierra Boggess has a whale of a time playing against type as frivolous Carrie – though one senses more than ever that she’s willing herself to feel real chemistry with malodorous fishing entrepreneur Enoch Snow, portrayed as a brash go-getter rather than a dreamboat by Julian Ovenden.

Making her musical theatre debut, fresh-voiced lyric soprano Francesca Chiejina is just wonderful as Julie’s capable, seen-it-all cousin Nettie, a role often entrusted to powerhouse mezzos: funny and vibrant in 'June Is Bustin’ Out All Over', she later delivers the show’s big tear-jerker 'You’ll Never Walk Alone' with a simple dignity that goes straight to the heart. And David Seadon-Young, who sang a memorably disturbing Jud Fry in Wilson’s Oklahoma! Prom, is equally skin-crawling here as Jigger Craigin, the small-time criminal who tempts Billy off the straight and narrow.

Caveats? Well, some of that ‘connective tissue’ feels a bit free-floating without the dialogue to anchor it (Carrie’s little outburst about her trip to a risqué Broadway show, for instance), but that’s my sole reservation. Strap in and enjoy the ride – but have tissues to hand.