Candide, Quarantined

Need to Know

Let’s learn about Lenny!

Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, pianist, educator, author and a lifelong humanitarian. He believed in the power of music to change the world and followed his passion despite reservations from his father.

Bernstein wrote music of every genre including symphonic/orchestral, ballet, film, choral, opera/musical theatre, as well as smaller chamber works and music for piano. Some of his most famous works include, West Side Story, Chichester Psalms, and Candide.

Bernstein became an overnight success in 1943 when he was asked to stand in and conduct the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall. He was also the first American-born conductor to lead an American orchestra, as well as the first conductor to explore music on television. His televised Young People’s Concerts with the New York Philharmonic brought classical music to the masses.

Want to know more about this great American composer? Here are a few links: 10 Dinner Party Facts, 17 Facts from CMUSE, and Charlotte Symphony.

Candid(e) facts about the operetta

Bernstein’s Candide is based on the 1759 satirical novella by Voltaire. The original *1956 libretto and concept of a play with incidental music was brought to Bernstein from Lillian Hellman. Bernstein was so excited about the concept that he convinced Hellman into making it into a comic operetta.

The premiere in 1956 was a flop and ran for only 2 months with a total of 73 performances. Without Bernstein, the show underwent many revivals under the direction of Harold Prince. The original librettist, Hellman, refused to let her work be used and a new one-act version, with many of Bernstein’s music cut, was commissioned and written by Hugh Wheeler. As opera companies asked for a more legitimate version of the revivals, a new two-act “opera house version” was created and restores much of the music cut in the revivals.

Finally in 1988, Bernstein working with John Mauceri, the director of the Scottish Opera, the composer began to reexamine the opera, moving numbers around and changing his orchestrations. In 1989 he recorded what he called his “final revised version” of Candide.

Glitter and Gardens

Candide contains wonderful arias and other musical moments, but the aria Glitter and be Gay and the ensemble finale Make Our Garden Grow are show stopping moments. The singing gymnastics of Glitter shows off the soprano’s range as well as acting ability and the finale showcases Bernstein’s genius with music and especially orchestration.

Here are links to each piece:Glitter and Be Gay and Make Our Garden Grow, each from the 1989 “final revised version” conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

A toast to what life throws at us!

Life is a little bit sweet, life can also be a little bitter, ultimately it's what we make of it. In honor of the opera Candide, your pre-opera cocktail is a little bit both. This Champagne cocktail is sweet from the added sugar cube, bitter from the added bitters, and bubbly from the champagne. So whatever life throws at you, be prepared with this refreshing cocktail. Watch John mix it here.

Ingredients: Champagne, 1 sugar cube, 2 dashes of Bitters, Lemon twist Directions: Add all the ingredients to a Champagne flute and Enjoy!

Synopsis

Overview:

Candide is Voltaire’s satirical take on Liebnizian optimism “All is for the best”. We watch as the main characters are confronted by great hardships and descend from their idealized world into a world that includes much pain and struggle. By the end of this fast past story, Candide rejects this blind optimism and takes to a more practical mantra, “we must cultivate our garden”.

Some links to the plot:

Here is a condensed version of the plot from guidetomusicaltheatre.com

Don’t want to read the plot? Neither do we, so here is a 4 minute animation about Voltaire’s satirical novella in which Bernstein built his opera Candide.