| The entire opening section of the Hytner production was amazing, but in my memory, the most breathtaking moment of it was the transition from the very beginning -- with the girls toiling away at the looms in the factory -- into the rest of it, with the girl escaping the factory at closing time and running to the fairgrounds, etc. It was as if Rodgers had written those dark opening measures specifically to depict the drudgery of the mill workers, but of course that's not how the original production opened. |
