The Golden Apple (musical)

The Golden Apple
1954 Original Cast Recording
Music	Jerome Moross
Lyrics	John Treville Latouche
Book	John Treville Latouche
Basis	Iliad and Odyssey of Homer
Productions	1954 Broadway 1961 Equity Library Theatre 1962 York Playhouse 1995 Light Opera Works 2014 Lyric Stage Dallas

The Golden Apple is a musical adaptation of parts of the Iliad and Odyssey with music by Jerome Moross and lyrics by John Treville Latouche. The musical premiered Off-Broadway in 1954 and then transferred to Broadway.

The Golden Apple was one of the first musicals produced Off-Broadway at the Phoenix Theatre, where it opened on March 11, 1954. The musical transferred to Broadway on April 20, 1954, at the Alvin Theater where it played for only 125 performances despite rave reviews. The original production starred Kaye Ballard as Helen, and Stephen Douglass as Ulysses. It was the first Off-Broadway show to win the Best Musical award from the New York Drama Critics' Circle. Latouche's lyrics are much praised; Steven Suskin wrote: "The Golden Apple benefits from imaginative theatricality in all departments but it was the more-than-glorious score that carried this brilliant musical theatre experiment from Off Broadway to the Alvin", a Broadway theater.

The musical is through-composed and exhibits features similar to more operatic musicals like Porgy and Bess, The Mother of Us All, Candide, and The Most Happy Fella.Jerome Moross was a classical composer of concert music, ballets, as well as a highly appreciated film score. Though the show is held in high esteem by devotees of musical theater, the full score was not commercially recorded until 2015 and the show has never been revived on Broadway. The musical is remembered in part for introducing the standard "Lazy Afternoon", sung by Ballard, and its fantastical, suggestive settings by William and Jean Eckart.