Leslie Garrett to star in Carousel

The opera singer Leslie Garrett, more used to the stages of the Royal Opera House and Glyndebourne, has agreed to star in a new London production of the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic musical, Carousel. The show, which will open at the Savoy Theatre on December 2, has not been seen in London since Nicholas Hytner’s highly successful 1992 production at the National Theatre.

It is not Garrett’s first West End outing, however. In 2006 she surprised opera types – no other star of her calibre has ever appeared in a London musical – by playing the Mother Abbess in another Rodgers and Hammerstein offering, The Sound of Music.

In Carousel she will take on the larger part of Nettie, who sings the belting anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone, one of Carousel’s most memorable numbers, long before it became the unofficial anthem of Liverpool Football Club. Says The First Post’s opera source: "She couldn’t have picked a better one. I think Garrett singing You’ll Never Walk Alone will be something people will pay top dollar to hear."