Leonard Bernstein and his Operetta Candide
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Leonard Bernstein thought of Candide as a “comic operetta,” but it opened on Broadway on December 1, 1956 billed as a “musical.” This show was derived from Voltaire’s Candide, with an adaptation by Lillian Hellman; the reviews were unkind.
There was a London production in 1959 that used Hellman’s book. After that, the show went through various alterations. According to Wikipedia, in 1974, Hal Prince produced a one-act, 105 minute “Chelsea version” with a new libretto by Hugh Wheeler that cut more than half of Bernstein’s songs. The show ran for two years on Broadway. However, opera companies were seeking “a more legitimate version,” so Prince created a two-act “opera house version” that expanded Wheeler’s book and included most of Bernstein’s music. It was first performed at New York City Opera in 1982.
Bernstein re-involved himself with the operetta, changing some orchestrations, shuffling the musical order a bit and writing some new endings; he recorded this version in 1989. However, ten years later, in 1999, the UK’s Royal National Theatre produced a new version, replacing Wheeler’s book with one written by John Caird (“RNT” version).
Prince led another revival on Broadway in 1997, followed by a 2004 Lonny Price concert production that was broadcast on PBS, starring Paul Groves as Candide and Kristin Chenoweth as Cunegonde. It is uncertain how many versions have been created since 1999. Because there are so many versions, if you go to a live performance, you need to inquire as to which version is being used.
Perhaps, if you want to understand the show, it may be best to start with Voltaire’s philosophical tale, Candide. It is a satirical look at a philosophy called rationalism, espoused by Descartes, Spinoza and a man called Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The philosophy is also called optimism or Leibnizian optimism. In an oversimplification, the philosophy explains that the world cannot be perfect, as God is perfect, so God created the “best possible world,” given the dark propensities of human nature.
Pangloss, described as “the greatest philosopher of the Holy Roman Empire,” is optimistic in the face of unmitigated horrors inflicted on him and those around him. Yet, he remains true to his philosophy: “I still hold to my original opinions, because, after all, I’m a philosopher, and it wouldn’t be proper for me to recant, since Leibniz cannot be wrong, and since pre-established harmony is the most beautiful thing in the world, along with the plenum and subtle matter.” (1959 Bair Translation, pp 107-108)
Thus, at its heart, the tale or novella, takes us through all kinds of human brutality against other humans as the means of delivering a broadside against rationalism and Leibniz. The tale starts out as a love story between Candide and the beautiful Cunegonde. After 30 chapters of horrors, she is both physically and mentally transfigured into an ugly hag. Candide, on the other hand, seems to play the role of narrator and mediator, trying to stay alive to tell the tale and to save his friends whenever they get into harm’s way. In the end, Candide brings his friends to a farm, where they all apply their individual talents; as Candide concludes: “we must cultivate our garden.” (Id., pp 112-113)
We must forgive Voltaire for some of his anger against Leibniz, because Voltaire suffered some terrible losses in his life, such as the death of his friend and mistress of 15 years, Marquise Emilie du Chatelet. She was an extraordinarily beautiful and intelligent woman who introduced Voltaire to physics, mathematics and philosophy. While she translated Newton’s Mathematica Principia into French, she also went beyond Newtonian physics, especially when it came to studying Leibniz’ writings on math and physics. Leibniz disagreed with Newton on a fundamental point; where Newton thought opposing forces negated each other, Leibniz felt that, upon collision, the forces were additive. Leibniz felt that no energy could be lost, and tried to reduce his hypothesis to an equation: energy equaled mass times velocity times velocity (E= mv2). But Leibniz had no proof, no objective evidence. Emilie found the evidence in the experiments of a Dutch researcher, Willem ‘sGravesande. By combining Leibniz’ theoretical position with Willem’s empirical proof, Emilie was able to lay the groundwork for Einstein’s transformational equation in 1905, E = mc2.
As a final irony, Bernstein’s Candide was performed in Paris in 2006 (50th anniversary of the operetta) at the Theatre du Chatelet.
While the music is good and sometimes excellent, it is not entirely popular. For this reason, we have chosen to emphasize three pieces.
First, we want to play the Overture for you. Like many classic overtures, it has taken on a life of its own and has been played by many symphonic orchestras. In this respect, it is much like Rossini’s William Tell Overture (better known as the theme from The Lone Ranger television show).
The second piece is the love of every coloratura, called “Glitter and Be Gay.” It is sung by Cunegonde as she puts on her jewelry in Paris, all of which has been gained by sharing her “favors” on alternate days of the week with the rich jew Don Issachar and the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris.
Finally, we have the song that brings the show to the point of its philosophical resolution, as Candide and Cunegonde vow to “Make Our Garden Grow.”