The revival of “Fiddler on the Roof” that opens at the Broadway Theater on Sunday night includes all the cherished characters (Tevye, Golde, their five daughters, and their shtetl neighbors) and all the unforgettable language (“Even a poor tailor is entitled to some happiness!”).

But this production, the sixth on Broadway in 51 years, also opens and closes with a brief, wordless, modern framing device — a bareheaded Tevye in modern clothing, and, at the end, an inescapable visual nod to the current global refugee crisis — that has stirred discussion among “Fiddler” devotees.

For months, the innovation, which consumes perhaps a minute in a show that is 155 minutes long, has been debated by the show’s Tony-winning director, Bartlett Sher, and its Tony-winning lyricist, Sheldon Harnick, who at 91 is the last surviving member of the show’s original creative team. Mr. Sher was adamant that the revival should explicitly, if briefly and quietly, connect to current events; Mr. Harnick repeatedly objected, leery of any changes to a show that has totemic power for several generations of theatergoers.