Show Finder

The road to hell is paved with heavenly music in “Hadestown,” the exuberant, exhilarating new musical that stands tall among a season of mostly (so far) lackluster Broadway competition. A retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, the show features a book and score by the singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell that ranks among the most adventurous and accomplished to be heard on Broadway in recent years.

Spun out of a 2010 concept album by singer-songwriter Anais Mitchell and developed together with director Rachel Chavkin as a seamless theatrical experience, this beguiling, virtually sung-through musical is notable for the expressive beauty of its score, the dark imagination of its stage pictures and the clarity of its storytelling. Performed by a first-rate cast and played with spirited feeling by seven onstage musicians, it arrives on Broadway with a furnace-like blast of creativity.

Arriving on Broadway with its earthly delights more or less intact, this perfectly heavenly musical — with book, music and lyrics by Anaïs Mitchell — should stick around for a while. The storytelling is spare, but the visuals say it all, helped along by the melodious voice and slip-sliding dance moves of the indomitable André De Shields as the swift-footed god Hermes, as well as by the three gorgeous, golden-throated Fates played by Jewelle Blackman, Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer and Kay Trinidad.