Wikipedia
Oklahoma! is the first musical written by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist Oscar Hammerstein II. The musical is based on Lynn Riggs' 1931 play, Green Grow the Lilacs. Set in Oklahoma Territory outside the town of Claremore in 1906, it tells the story of cowboy Curly McLain and his romance with farm girl Laurey Williams. A secondary romance concerns cowboy Will Parker and his flirtatious fiancée, Ado Annie.
The original Broadway production opened on March 31, 1943. It was a box-office smash and ran for an unprecedented 2,212 performances, later enjoying award-winning revivals, national tours, foreign productions and an Academy Award-winning 1955 film adaptation. It has long been a popular choice for school and community productions. Rodgers and Hammerstein won a special Pulitzer Prize for Oklahoma! in 1944.
This musical, building on the innovations of the earlier Show Boat, epitomized the development of the " book musical", a musical play where the songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals that are able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. In addition, Oklahoma! features musical themes, or motifs, that recur throughout the work to connect the music and story. A fifteen-minute "dream ballet" reflects Laurey's struggle with her feelings about two men, Curly and Jud.
Oklahoma! is a 1999 musical film directed by Trevor Nunn, choreographed by Susan Stroman, and starring Hugh Jackman as Curly McLain, Josefina Gabrielle as Laurey Williams, and Maureen Lipman as Aunt Eller. The production featured the entire 1998 London revival cast at the Royal National Theatre.
Oklahoma! is a 1955 musical film based on the 1943 stage musical Oklahoma!, written by composer Richard Rodgers, and lyricist/ librettist Oscar Hammerstein II and starring Gordon MacRae, Shirley Jones (in her film debut), Rod Steiger, Charlotte Greenwood, Gloria Grahame, Gene Nelson, James Whitmore and Eddie Albert. The production was the only musical directed by Fred Zinnemann. Oklahoma! was the first feature film photographed in the Todd-AO 70 mm widescreen process.
The film received a rave review from The New York Times, and was voted a "New York Times Critics Pick". In 2007, Oklahoma! was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Oklahoma! is the original soundtrack album of the 1955 film Oklahoma!, an adaptation of the musical play of the same name. The soundtrack charted No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Album Chart in 1956 and has been in continual print. On July 8, 1958, it became the first album to be certified "gold" by the RIAA, and was later certified "2x multi-platinum" on April 1, 1992.
It was originally released as a 42-minute album on the Capitol Records label, but only in mono at first. However, as with the 1956 film soundtracks of Carousel and The King and I (also issued by Capitol on LP), because the film's soundtrack had been recorded in then state-of-the-art stereo, it was possible for Capitol to issue a stereo version of the album in 1958. And again as with Carousel because of a difference between mono and stereo grooves, it was necessary to cut a very brief section of the music on the stereo release.
In 1956, less than a year after the first mono Capitol soundtrack LP was released, Goddard Lieberson of rival Columbia Records produced a studio cast LP of Oklahoma! featuring Nelson Eddy and a supporting cast, with the chorus and orchestra directed by Lehman Engel, and using the original orchestrations. The Columbia LP "Nelson Eddy in Oklahoma" (CL 828) was promoted as the "complete score" because it included the song "Lonely Room" and a track, "Entrance of Ensemble", which had not previously been released from the score.