(2005) A hilarious musical interpretation of Voltaire's satirical novel, Leonard Bernstein's comic operetta in two acts, performed in concert by the New York Philharmonic under the baton of Marin Alsop accompanied by the Westminster Symphony Choir and a chorus of the Julliard Undergraduate Workshop (who occasionally hold up cards to indicate locations and other information), was adapted from Hugh Wheeler's play with lyrics by Richard Wilbur (additional lyrics from Stephen Sondheim, Lillian Hellman, and others) and directed by Lonny Price, live in Avery Fisher Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York City. While I'm not generally a fan of opera or musicals, I recommend this production.

At the beginning of Act I, four happy young people - Candide (Paul Groves), the illegitimate cousin of the gorgeous (in voice and flesh) Cunegonde (Kristin Chenoweth) and her conceited brother ("I am everything I need") Maximillian (Jeff Blumenkrantz) along with the beautiful servant girl Paquette (Janine LaManna) - reside together cheerfully in their beloved schloss in Westfalia. They have been instructed by Dr Pangloss (Sir Thomas Allen, who also has the roles of narrator and Voltaire) to view their world as "the best of all possible worlds."

Inspired by Dr Pangloss's noble experiment in relative specific gravity with Paquette, Cunegonde suggests to Candide that they perform a similar experiment with their bodies, leading them to fall in love and a desire to wed. But the Baron, having none of his daughter's marrying a bastard, banishes Candide. The Bulgarian military, after coercing the young man into their ranks, propose to executive him for attempted desertion; from which he's saved by the outbreak of war with Westfalia.

In the subsequent slaughter, Candide finds his relations massacred and hears of Cunegonde's having been raped and killed. "Everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds," Dr Pangloss, sans nose and a few fingers from syphilis, reiterates as the pair board a ship for Lisbon, which flounders during the voyage, leaving Candide and the doctor, the only fortuitous survivors, on the shore of an island.

A volcano erupts on the island, killing 30,000 people, for which the heretical aliens are blamed (topical references intrude, such as a Donald Trump character presiding as a judge): Candide is flogged while Dr Pangloss is hanged. "For what purpose was this world created?" asks a disillusioned Candide: "What is kindness but a lie? What to live for but to die?"

Following a series of picaresque adventures, the innocent but ravaged Candide arrives in Paris (oh, the fashions by famous designers!) where serendipitously he's reunited with Cunegonde, who survived the abuses of the Bulgarians only to become ("bitter circumstance") the mistress of a Jewish Grand Duke half of each week and the Archbishop the other half, leaving her Mondays under the watch of an elderly matron (Patti LuPone), a half-buttocked chaperone.

Quite accidentally, Candide ("the most virtuous man in the world") dispatches Cunegonde's two lechers, freeing her. They flee into Spain with the old woman, who relates stories of her own manifold calamities and misfortunes after a youth of privilege and promise.

In Act II the trio embark on a voyage for the New World to Montevideo (the chorus cards have the spelling incorrect) in South America where the governor immediately takes a fancy to Cunegonde, while Candide must once again abandon her to save his own neck, entering a jungle where he discovers Paquette and Maximillian (their being alive is a long story) among the Jesuits.

For three years Cunegonde is bedded rather than wedded, the old lady fidgets restlessly in the palace with boredom, and Candide along with Paquette (Max was left for dead) discover El Dorado, a paradise of gold and articulate sheep. With wealth to ransom Cunegonde, Candide and Paquette return to Montevideo, but in the meantime Cunegonde and the old woman are abducted by pirates and taken to Constantinople where Cunegonde is forced by the prince of a casino into being an odalisque.

In pursuit of his love, Candide is further swindled; his ship sinks, but miracles aplenty follow. Once again in Constantinople the lovers, including Paquette and Maximillian (another complex subplot), are reunited and freed from further bondage. A white-bearded sage (possibly Dr Pangloss) advises them that happiness eludes those who seek it and informs them that the natural function of man, as it was in the beginning and ever shall be, is honest labor.

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Copyright © 2011 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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