# Oklahoma! a groundbreaking musical **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** theater-stage-dance\ **Created:** [February 17, 2026, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747 "2026-02-17T15:02:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hermione1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d07c76/32.png) [@Hermione1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione1)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/21 "2026-02-17T18:17:46Z")
One of said exceptions was the original version of Bizet’s _Carmen_, which actually had spoken dialogue. Later productions replaced the dialogue with recitative (a sort of speaking/singing hybrid), and now it’s a toss-up as to what you’ll see in a production. The (excellent) 1984 film version with Julia Migenes and Placido Domingo features the dialogue. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/22 "2026-02-17T18:38:16Z")
What hasn’t been mentioned is that it integrated dance into the story line. Laurie’s dream ballet expresses her feelings through dance. There had been previous musicals where the songs advanced the story, but before _Oklahoma!_, they dance numbers were just spectacle. The dream ballet and some of the original dance numbers advance the plot and help define relationships. It’s the first to integrate all the elements. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/23 "2026-02-17T18:40:18Z")
Transcribed from **National Lampoon Radio Hour —** Gentleman sitting in talent agent’s office: (off-key, alternating between two notes) O-kla-homa where the wind comes sweeping down the plain, and the waving wheat can sure smell sweet when the wind comes right behind the rain — Talent agent: Mister Hammerstein, you’re a wonderful lyricist — Hammerstein: Oh, thank you — Talent agent: Let me find someone to do the music, OK? ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/24 "2026-02-17T18:41:43Z")
Great answers so far (and the post that @hajario linked to from an old thread adds a lot of good context). I’ll be even bolder (if maybe not completely accurate) for the sake of clarity, and claim that prior to Oklahoma!, musicals were simply vaudeville and musical reviews, with perhaps a basic framing narrative or setting that might or might not have anything to do with what was happening on stage at a given moment. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/25 "2026-02-17T18:46:49Z")
For anyone interested - here’s a link to an episode of a podcast I occasionally listen to on just this subject! Great podcast. Fun to listen to! > **[163: The Show (Boat) Must Go On: Broadway and the American Musical](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/163-the-show-boat-must-go-on-broadway-and/id1291579828?i=1000666608364)** > > Podcast Episode · History That Doesn't Suck · 08/26/2024 · 1h ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/26 "2026-02-17T18:58:34Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > The simpler way to view it is that _Oklahoma!_ was the first completely unified and integrated piece of musical theater, in the sense that all the songs and dance numbers are directed connected to and motivated by the central storyline, and contribute to telling a single coherent story. > [@Dorjan](#): > > A more contemporary way of looking at it is that Pre-Oklahoma, musicals were very similar to Bollywood movies. The big song and dance numbers that interrupted the main story were at best, loosely connected to the plot. As I see it, the **[Threepenny Opera, by Bert Brecht and Kurt Weill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Threepenny_Opera)**, from 1928, was a “completely unified and integrated piece of musical theater, in the sense that all the songs and dance numbers are directed connected to and motivated by the central storyline, and contribute to telling a single coherent story”, and the songs did not “interrupt the main story” but developed it. Of course a musical, a musical theater play, an opera, an operette, a **[zarzuela](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela)** and so many other words for closely related art forms are all completely different, yet in the end, the same. I would claim that Oklahoma! was groundbreaking in that it was a bigger commercial success, aided by the new-ish medium colour pictures with sound. And it was a big commercial success because the songs and the libretto were fine, and it was the right time for it. Of course I found it boring as a child, but to be frank it was not made for children who don’t understand English. I wonder now why Spanish cinema theaters showed those films (and 7 brothers for 7 sisters and the blizzard of Oz) at all. Well they did, and left a confused me back. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/27 "2026-02-17T19:07:43Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > I would claim that Oklahoma! was groundbreaking in that it was a bigger commercial success, aided by the new-ish medium colour pictures with sound. Oklahoma! didn’t make it to the big screen until 1955. By then it had already had a huge influence on stage and screen over the previous 10+ years. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/28 "2026-02-17T19:08:06Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > the blizzard of Oz _The **Wizard** of Oz_, I assume. _The Blizzard of Ozz_ is an Ozzy Osbourne album. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/29 "2026-02-17T20:11:48Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > What hasn’t been mentioned is that it integrated dance into the story line. 🤨 > [@Cervaise](#): > > all the songs and dance numbers are directed connected to and motivated by the central storyline ---
**Author:** ![ZosterSandstorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e0b2c6/32.png) [@ZosterSandstorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZosterSandstorm)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/30 "2026-02-17T20:31:02Z")
> Mr. Steyn remarks on the deceptive simplicity of Richard Rodgers’ unforgettable tune: “It seems as simple as a folk song. But no anonymous farm-hand’s sing-a-long would have [the protagonist] ‘Curly’ sing ‘morning’ on D-natural, and then, in the equivalent spot two lines on, sing ‘feeling’ on D-sharp. You need a professional for that: they signal Curly’s intensity of feeling about the land he belongs to . . . In other words, _Oklahoma_’s score brought tactics from opera and jazz to a Broadway that previously was focused entirely on mainstream popular songwriting techniques. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/31 "2026-02-17T20:33:02Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > … I’ll be even bolder (if maybe not completely accurate) for the sake of clarity, and claim that prior to Oklahoma!, musicals were simply vaudeville and musical reviews, with perhaps a basic framing narrative or setting that might or might not have anything to do with what was happening on stage at a given moment. According to one theater history article I read years ago, the opinion among the Broadway wags when _Oklahoma_ was in rehearsal was, “No girls, no gags, no chance!” After it opened, that changed to, “No girls, no gags, no tickets.” ---
**Author:** ![Hermione1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/d07c76/32.png) [@Hermione1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hermione1)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/32 "2026-02-17T20:47:10Z")
You guys might enjoy [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCDcZHnydDU) comparing _Oklahoma_ to its source, Lynn Riggs’ play _Green Grow The Lilacs._ It’s by Christi Esterle, aka Diva of Musical Hell, a video series that reviewed bad movie musicals. Christi no longer does Musical Hell, but she still does her other series, like Know The Score which discusses musicals and their tropes, and At The Source, which compares musicals to their source material. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/33 "2026-02-17T21:07:50Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > At the same time, there’s something refreshing about a woman singing that she experiences and enjoys sex. Which became a whole subgenre of Broadway songs. (“Whatever Lola Wants,” “No Time at All,” “Big Spender”…) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/34 "2026-02-17T22:57:55Z")
Those examples actually indicate how comparatively rare the theme is: “Whatever Lola Wants” is sung by a character deliberately trying to lure the male protagonist in accordance with orders from her boss; “Big Spender” is likewise a pitch by entertainers/sex workers for whom luring men is part of their job. “No Time at All”, sung by a 66-year-old character, is the only one of those three that’s plausibly a sincere expression of enjoyment of sex. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/35 "2026-02-18T03:28:54Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > Is that the same as light opera? I think light opera is a term that can include works ranging from an American musical (at least that requires pretty good voices, not all do) to a Mozart singspiel (like Abduction from the Seraglio). That’s my opinion, of course, it’s really a catch-all term designed to appeal to non-opera lovers, assuring them that they won’t fall asleep during it. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/36 "2026-02-18T03:48:11Z")
to me the definitive Carmen!+++ ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/37 "2026-02-18T20:16:55Z")
In the First Act, when Curly went to visit Jud, did Jud confess to murdering a bunch of people? He speaks of leaving town after a farmhand, spurned by his love interest, burned down a barn/home with the people inside. Was Jud confessing to murder? Just telling Curly that he’s capable of murder? Just making polite conversation? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2026, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/38 "2026-02-18T22:46:43Z")
Here’s the relevant part of [the script](https://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/oklahoma/script.htm#google_vignette): > JUD. If it ever come to gittin’ even with anybody, I’d know > how to do it. > CURLY. (Looking down at gun and pointing.) That?.., > JUD. Nanh! They’s safer ways then that, if you use yer > brains… 'Member that far on the Bartlett farm over by > Sweetwater? > CURLY. Shore do. 'Bout five years ago. Turrble accident. > Burned up the father, and mother and daughter. > JUD. That warn’t no accident. A feller told me - the h’ard > hand was stuck on the Bartlett girl, and he found her in > the hayloft with another feller. > CURLY. And it was him that burned the place? > JUD. (Nodding.) It tuck him weeks to git all the kerosene - > buying it at different times - feller who told me made > out it happened in Missouri, but I knowed all the time > it was the Bartlett farm. Whut a liar he was! > CURLY. A kind of a murderer, too. Wasn’t he? ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/39 "2026-02-25T03:38:54Z")
The idea that Oklahoma! was ‘groundbreaking’ was contentious at the time and has continued to be ever since. There was the suggestion that G&S, light opera, and opera, dealt with European subjects.. Or had European authors, like Puccini’s “Girl of the Golden West”. Or had authors that were _born_ in Europe like Sigmond Romberg That wasn’t entirely convincing to me. The idea I like best was expressed by one of the early commentators: opera was what they showed in opera houses, and musicals were what they showed on Broadway. In that sense, apparently Oklahoma! _was_ groundbreaking. It was produced by American producers, for showing in American musical theater, to Music theater audiences. You only have to look at how repetitive and derivative modern film and literature is to understand hard it is to get something like that. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747/40 "2026-02-25T03:49:45Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > In that sense, apparently Oklahoma! _was_ groundbreaking. It was produced by American producers, for showing in American musical theater, to Music theater audiences. But the same can be said for _Show Boat_, from 1927. Cervaise summed it up best, way back in post #3. > [@Cervaise](#): > > The simpler way to view it is that _Oklahoma!_ was the first completely unified and integrated piece of musical theater, in the sense that all the songs and dance numbers are directed connected to and motivated by the central storyline, and contribute to telling a single coherent story. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oklahoma-a-groundbreaking-musical/1027747.md?page=3)