Candide
Leonard Bernstein
Operetta in two acts.
Libretto by Lillian Hellman and Richard Wilbur with additional lyrics by Hugh Wheeler, John Treville Latouche, Dorothy Parker and Stephen Sondheim.
Premiered on 1 December 1956 at the Martin Beck Theater, New York.
Concert version.
Infos
Mulhouse
La Filature
Strasbourg
Palais universitaire de Strasbourg
Duration: 2hr20 including interval.
In partnership with La Filature – Scène nationale de Mulhouse.
Cast
Artists
Pangloss and Martin Lambert Wilson Candide Damian Arnold Cunégonde Floriane Derthe The Old Lady Liying Yang Maximilien Oleg Volkov Paquette Brenda Poupard The Captain Andrei Maksimov The Governor Glen Cunningham Vanderdendur Iannis Gaussin
Presentation
Candide lives a charmed life at the court of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronck, buoyed by the optimistic philosophy of his teacher Dr. Pangloss who believes that they live “in the best of all possible worlds”. But no sooner does Candide share an innocent kiss with his beautiful Cunegonde than he is wrenched from this patch of paradise. Soon expelled from the castle, he is coerced into war and travels the world from Lisbon to Buenos Aires via Paris, Venice and Eldorado. Disappointments and mishaps ensue, forcing the unfortunate protagonist to admit that Dr. Pangloss’ high principles crack under the scrutiny of experience. He almost abandons his old tutor’s metaphysico-theologico-cosmolo-nigology instruction to cultivate a garden…
In Candide (1759), Voltaire merrily mocks blind optimism and flawed Western society with an irony and comedy of situation that heralds the theater of the absurd. Set to music by Bernstein a year before West Side Story, this philosophical tale gradually became a classic American musical thanks above all to its overture and Cunegonde’s aria, the showstopping “Glitter and Be Gay”. Lambert Wilson plays the philosopher Dr. Pangloss, leading a troupe of young singers from the Opéra Studio on a joyful voyage through the absurd.
In English
Overtitled in French, German
