Read what our audiences had to say about Candide
Send us your own review to insideout@eno.org
Review from Michael
Bernstein's Candide has its roots firmly not in the European Enlightenment but in 50s America.
For its French première, Canadian director Robert Carsen embraced that setting, right from the delicious "Volt-air" tv montage which accompanied the familiar overture. The best of all possible worlds clearly the post-war US of A.
The picaresque plot works well in this cartoon cut-out framework, and the story was told with wry humour and deadpan delivery by the excellent Alex Jennings, who played not only Voltaire but the advocate of Optimism, Dr Pangloss, and his unfortunate antithesis Martin.
A stylish Cunegonde from Marnie Breckenridge, and a beautifully sung hero from Toby Spence, who managed to look [and often sound] 18, innocent, and American. Coliseum stalwart Bonaventura Bottone sang a number of roles, including the Red-neck, White-trash, Blue-collar immigration officer. The audience warmed to Beverley Klein as the Old Woman whose misfortunes make Candide's look trifling, and it was good to see Simon Butteriss taking time off from G&S for a couple of telling cameos, including one of a pair of camp stewards.
Not all of the satirical points made sense. Voltaire's savage wit was not directed at any one ideology or any one nation. His New World was not the USA but a land unspoilt until the Westerners arrived. The deposed kings seemed a cheap laugh - it played better on the continent, perhaps. And the old Titanic gag - from Coward's Cavalcade - was dredged up not once but twice.
Rumon Gamba conducted a large operatic orchestra in the Coliseum pit, but otherwise the sound-world was very much that of Broadway - everything amplified and often unfocussed. Little point in having one of the leading tenors of his generation if the mixing desk might have made a lesser voice sound as good ...
Review from Emily
Candide or Optimism?
While I anticipated a period reproduction of Candide I was pleasantly surprised when I was treated to a 1950's styled satire that was modern without being tacky but classic enough to be taken seriously but making me laugh all the way through.
The only thing that wasn't perfect about this production, and it was something that couldn't really be helped, was that Kristin Chenoweth was unable to perform; I was personally disappointed as I had booked my tickets 6 months in advance in hope of guaranteeing a chance to see Miss Chenoweth. I was not thoroughly impressed with the Cunegonde that ultimately was in the production. She was unable to hit the hight notes as Kristin would have and couldn't find the greed of Cunegonde, who really slept her way around the world.
Toby Spence of course was the star of the show, and rightly so. He was superb; his Candide was sweet and naive but brave and kindly. A smaller role but was outstanding was the Old Lady; hilariously funny, a half arsed character without a half arsed performance.
The Klu Klux Klan dancers were a particularly surreal highlight; an edgy comedy choice but it was perfect.
On the whole this was a real treat and something I hope to encounter again.
Review from Robin
I have not read Voltaire's Candide (indeed I only have a brief acquaintance with a few pages of Zadig), so was not sure what to expect from Leonard Bernstein's musical treatment of the story. Essentially, Candide, is a young man, living in a baron's castle in Westphalia, where Dr Pangloss teaches that all's for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Candide is kicked out getting too close to Cunégonde, the baron's daughter. He undergoes a series of adventures in exotic locations which usually end badly (such as being flogged, hung or shipwrecked). Along the way he meets many other people for whom life is not necessarily a bowl of roses, but Pangloss is usually around to point out the positives. Cunégonde meanwhile suffers similar vicissitudes and debasements. In the end Candide realises that life is neither optimistic nor pessimistic, that Cunégonde is all too human, and rather than philosophise, "let us cultivate our garden". The storyline is well made for musical treatment, in the same way as Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress" (which we are seeing next week), and the travelling to outlandish places is a standard theatrical and literary device (see for example Shakespeare's The Tempest, Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Janacek's Mr Broucek). Therefore, setting an Enlightenment tale in post-War America and stuffing it with appropriate references is par for the course, and on that score the evening worked. The problem was that the musical treatment was simply not strong enough: the continual pastiche lacked any central theme. Tacking numbers together does not make a show. However, the production did its best to make up for the music. The proscenium is transformed into a huge fifties TV set (complete with turret tuner): during the overture the screen is filled with film of happy Americans enjoying the good life; for the intermezzo, the pictures come from the SS France and show how first class pax crossed the Atlantic in the best French elegance (to mimic Candide's own crossing in a Titanic). The action then takes place inside the TV, with some very clever scene changes and spectacle. Voltaire himself appears as the narrator and doubles as Pangloss. Westphalia becomes Westfailure, and the baron's castle, the White House. (The baron and his wife become the Kennedys, though the original says the wife weighed 358lbs). After which scene follows scene in profusion: the battle, the earthquake, the House Un-American Activities Committee (an Inquisition, Ku Klux Klan style), the hanging (ENO are getting quite good at these), the shipwreck, the film studio (complete with Marilyn Monroe, a girl band and Osgood Fielding III's classic line, "Nobody's perfect!"), Ellis Island, middle American religious fervour, the Vegas Casino. And the oil, very cleverly done with black cloths across the stage. I missed the point of the five ex-leaders (George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Silvio Berlusconi), but they were a straight take-off of the six kings of the original. Musically the thing was excellent, with the orchestra enjoying themselves and the large cast, many doubling many roles in fine form. The Candide of Toby Spence (who sang at the Noel Davies memorial concert) was highly lyrical, and I was glad to see Bonaventura Bottone back in the house as the Grand Inquisitor. Mairéad Buicke particularly appealed as Paquette (the young girl whose lessons in "experimental natural philosophy" from Pangloss start the whole process off, and who herself goes from bad to worse) especially when in her Bunny outfit. The dancers also helped keep the show moving, though generally pacing was hindered by the form of the work as a whole.
This was a coprod with Le Châtelet and La Scala, so money had been thrown at it, which showed in all the detail, and in the costumes: backstage must have been chaotic.
Review from Alex
This is a production that divides opinion. Judging by the other reviews on the site there is no overall consensus here. By the looks of the audience around me during the evening I attended (Wednesday July 9th), this was also the case for many people who may not be contributing their opinions online. Some people to either side of me gave standing ovations at the curtain calls, others I could see were more muted in their response. However,the applause seemed overall to be that of an engaged and appreciative crowd.
Little wonder perhaps when the production values were so high. The singing, the acting, the orchestra, set design and choreography were all stunning. This is by no means a trivial point to make despite what I'll be saying later regarding my major reservations. I'm glad to have seen Alex Jennings giving the best Voltaire/Pangloss I've ever witnessed. The way he sharply defined each character he played physically and vocally was the work of an performer at the top of his game. Beverley Klein deserves an award for her Old Lady. It is quite right that she got some of the biggest laughs of the night. Likewise the singing by Marnie Breckenridge, Toby Spence, Bonaventura Bottone (surely no-one could ever sing "My Love" or "Bon Voyage" with so much poise,relish or as beautifully nuanced as this man does) and Mark Stone was always marvellous. They were of course also neatly complimented by a great ensemble cast and Rumon Gamba's fluent, precise and clear conducting. All these good qualities are admirable, praiseworthy and even rare things in any production. So what's my problem?
I love CANDIDE, both the novel by Voltaire and Bernstein's score (or should that be "scores", since there are so many different versions of it?). The reason I love the book CANDIDE is because it is a product of its own time and yet it subtly speaks to later periods and situations.
To impose the 1950's US setting on the Bernstein show is superficially both attractive and tempting to a director since the US in the '50's was a place and time of sexual, political and religious oppression(as in the 18th Century), the paranoia of the Cold War parallels the uncomfortable suspicion that European neighbour states in Voltaire's time had towards each other and of course the first version of the show was produced in 1956. So far, so reasonable. Why not do this since CANDIDE the show is no less a product of a specific time and place than CANDIDE the book?
Well here's why. Bernstein wrote his show to be a musical adaptation of Voltaire's book. Therefore putting in the references to Blair, Putin, Las Vegas, Monroe, Some Like it Hot, etc is inappropriate and also rather like using a bludgeoning instrument when subtlety is a far more effective weapon in the armoury of satire. The recognition through suggestion when one sees that the brutish militarism of the war in Westphalia in Act I might parallel the brutish militarism of certain other contemporary wars, or when seeing that the greed, depravity and materialism of the ruling classes in the 1700's might have some parallels closer to home seems far more the in style of both Voltaire and Bernstein than the obvious preachy approach of this version.
Moreover the subtlety, internal logic and nuances of character in many scenes and musical numbers just fly out the window here. However, it's not always that simple.
For example the show stopping GLITTER AND BE GAY in Act I just looked amazing - basically the director had decided to turn the number into "DIAMONDS ARE A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND". As a technical piece of staging it was hard to fault, especially with Marnie Breckenridge's soaring voice and wonderful performance.
But what is this aria really about? It's about a woman who is wants to cast herself as the conventional wilting heroine of romantic fiction, dishonoured and used by lustful, exploitative men, but unfortunately cannot find it inside herself to stop enjoying the material rewards of the lifestyle she's been forced into. It should be both uncomfortably truthful and wildly funny for an audience because it exposes a person who is selfish, immature and cynical but nevertheless a victim both of the men who exploit her and of self-deception.
The Marilyn Monroe stuff that we see here is far less poignant as the movie star into which the direction turns Cunegonde is clearly less of a victim than the high class courtesan that she would be if the director stuck to the plot as laid down both in Voltaire and other versions of the Bernstein show. This watering down also gives Candide a far less understandable motivation to kill movie producers Don Issachar and Don Cardinale than if he were to kill the vilely unpleasant and hypocritical religious authority figures that they should have been! His shooting them did not come out of nothing as it seemed to as I watched last night. Candide is protecting the woman he loves and lest we forget he's earlier been the victim of religious oppression himself during the auto-da-fe scenes. "Sufficient reason" indeed! This by the way was not the only example. I pick on it because it seems the most obvious.
Time and again this lack of logic and credible character motivation nagged at me. "Am I being unfair?" I kept asking. After all Voltaire's breakneck pace means that details of why a particular character does or says something significant are sometimes sketchy and the details of characters' miraculous escapes from death are deliberately ludicrous. The point is that the details are there to allow the reader/audience to follow the plot. This grounding in a logical progression, however far- fetched, actually makes the story more memorable rather than less.
In the director's vision of this show, what should have been a far-fetched yet satirical fantasy grounded in actual (if thin) details of time and place becomes as my companion for the evening said to me: "just a wacky surreal journey". Which is fine if you like wacky surrealism. But if not, please explain to me just how Candide's story starts off in a White House which is clearly meant to be the White House in Washington, and later travels across the sea to "the New World" which is actually just other parts of the US? What's the point of this, apart from the blunt parallels I mentioned earlier? How exactly does the audience keep a handle on the narrative of Candide's quest? Are we being told that the claws of US-inspired culture and capitalism extend everywhere and there's no escape from it? If so, this seems to me to be clumsy and forced.
Just as clumsy by the way, is the gag of turning "Westphalia" into "West Failure" - presumably to let us know that the Western World has failed to provide any convincing ways of answering humanity's spiritual, political and philosophical questions or needs. Again I remain steadfast in my belief that Voltaire knew what he was about in his rather less obvious approach, and so did Bernstein.
Moreover, lines like: "...a sorrow nothing can assuage!" just sound far more convincing if they come from the mouth of an 18th Century European aristocrat turned high class tart than if they come from that of a glamorous 1950's film star no matter how brilliantly performed.
It wasn't all bad of course. As I've said earlier the show is a visual treat. The "Volt-Air" title sequence on the giant TV screen during the overture looked great, as did the "environmental warning" film played while the cast sung "Make our Garden Grow" at the end. The dancing KKK members in the Inquisition scenes were genuinely hilarious, as was the marvellous clumsy business during "We are Women". Yes, these things were wonderful to watch, but by the end of the evening I did not feel satisfied that I or the characters had really been on a spiritual and philosophical journey and was thus entirely unmoved by the end scenes, even despite the glorious music. I hold the direction entirely to blame - sacrificing depth and sublety for the sake of what's attention-grabbing and seems to some like a nifty and original idea.
As I said this show has caused a variety of reactions, so I'm sure there are others out there queuing up to say how wrong I am and what a triumph the show is. I'm truly sorry because I wanted to like it more than I did, but I'm afraid ultimately I'm going to have to put my view down as fabulous icing, shame about the cake.
Review from Jim
The Best Of All Possible Productions?
At first sight it is a cheap trick, to relocate the place and period in which a work is set to the composer's home country at the time at which it was written. It is also disrespectful if allegorical references were impossible to be spoken plainly at the time of writing. All historical and inter-textual comparisons between setting, composition date and the present are also immediately reduced by a third. To make a direct comparison, what would be the point in playing Arthur Miller's brilliant witch-hunt parallel in "The Crucible" to look like mid-20th century USA? Further problems arise, however, when the audience fails to recognise that the religious zealotry, false accusation and hysteria in 17th century Salem is really about the American Red-Under-The-Bed paranoia that led to widespread persecution and purges.
The idea for "Candide" came to Lillian Hellman, who was invited to testify at those trials and had noticed yet another historical parallel for the HUOC, namely the Inquisition. She suggested it to Leonard Bernstein in 1953, the year that "The Crucible" was first performed on Broadway. Although its starting point was that same political climate, "Candide" benefits from the wider scope of Voltaire's philosophical satire.
The strengths and weaknesses of the musical Candide stem from its illustrious pedigree. It took three years to get to a first performing version and has remained a "work in progress" for over half a century. In addition to Lillian Hellman's adaptation of Voltaire's book there was a rewrite by Michael Stewart and further changes by Hugh Wheeler, then it was tweaked by Jonathan Miller and John Wells (Mr Wells also shares credits with Bernstein for the addition of the narration) and now Robert Carsen and Ian Burton, lyrics were written by John LaTouche, who was replaced by Richard Wilbur, who was joined by others including Dorothy Parker, Leonard and Felicia Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. It may have been a labour of love, Bernstein's homage to operettas of the Old World and musical theatre and the popular dances of his native Americas, but the result of committees is usually a bland compromise.
Did I mention subtlety? Try another opera. The overture accompanies filmed credits on the 1950's television set that frames the stage. Already we are in multi-media (a cross-reference here to anyone else who was at "Lost Highway", though there the resemblance ends) territory. The action opens with the narrator, Voltaire (Alex Jennings), showing us the West Failure White House, over which Baron Kennedy and his family hold court. Voltaire, his impeccable intonation bringing to mind the narration in "Shock Headed Peter", cleverly changes into a geeky Pangloss (in act 2 he also takes on the pessimistic Martin) to give his metaphisico-theologo-cosmolonigology lesson to the naïve Candide (Toby Spence), the alluring Cunegonde (Marnie Breckenridge), promiscuous Paquette (Mairead Buicke) and pompous Maximilian (Mark Stone), during which the principal relationships that drive the action are introduced. Candide's expulsion from Camelot and press-gang recruitment to the army precedes a brutal visual depiction of Voltaire's description of war. Picaresque adventure, tragedy, comedy, farce and romance are seamlessly intermingled in the scenes that follow.
There is never a dull moment in this production and thus impossible to describe any more than the briefest taste of the evening. References to familiar works abound. The Lisbon earthquake and HUOC/auto de fe is conducted in shamelessly bad taste, highly reminiscent of the Inquisition scene of Mel Brooks' "History of the World, Part 1" and with similarly cheerful, high-kicking cone-capped accusers eager to hang all "homosexualists and commie Jews". The celebrated big number, "Glitter And Be Gay", has Cunegonde brilliantly portraying Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (the Monroe theme continues later with Maximilian cross-dressed as a saxaphone-playing Tony Curtis from "Some Like It Hot"). The half-arsed Old Woman (Beverley Klein) who divides Cunegonde's bed duties between the Grand Inquisitor and Issachar the Banker (here both depicted as rival film producers) was portrayed as a cross between Madame Dilly from "On The Town" and Groucho Marx.
The orchestra under Rumon Gamba responded enthusiastically to the score, the chorus were in fine voice and the dancers were superb. The cast was excellent without exception, with special mention to Marnie Breckenridge, Toby Spence and Alex Jennings and, most of all, the amazingly versatile Beverley Klein.
A cheap trick, the work of a committee, unsubtle, knowing-wink derivative and as camp as the feather boa in a Baden Powell tribute act, this production is more than just the sum of its parts. Visually stunning and breathtakingly in pace, I have no hesitation is declaring this to be the best of all possible productions!
Review from Michael
A lot of good things about this. The singing and dancing were generally very good, the orchestra was excellent, the staging had a lot of clever touches. But the whole thing was marred by sloppy, right-on anti-Americanism. Of course this was written as a satire but it was written with subtlety which Carsen did his best to destroy. How does it make sense to start from the White House and go to the "New World"? What was the point, beyond headline-chasing, of the inane scene with Bush, Putin etc-not funny, not satirical, musically useless? Anyone with even minimal knowledge of American religion knows that the Mormons are not the happy-clappy sect depicted. As for the KKK at the auto-da-fe, McCarthy and co were certainly not fans of the KKK whatever their other faults.And just to underline the ignorance behind Carsens' so-called cleverness, with the real Inquisition it was the supposed heretics wearing the pointed hats-called sambenitos for Mr Carsen's education.A production ideal for people who become helpless with laughter if anyone says "Bush" eg the incredibly irritating person sitting on one side of me. The National Thetare production was not as good musically but did not suffer form the delusion that the composer is the servant of the producer, not the other way round.On the whole, why not get Bernstein's recording with a fabulous cast and really enjoy?
Review from Martin
Candide certainly delivered last evening with the director taking daring risks and the cast rising to to the many challenges this show invariably presents.
Every ten years or so Candide comes around again demanding a new, fresh take and on most levels this current production at the ENO succeeds. Liberties taken for sure and slightly too much poetic license given to the alteration in localities and lyrics, but these are fairly minor caviats. Bernstein's captivating score forever glorious and fulfilling. His estate would be proud.
High points: Robert Carsen's staging and Rob Ashford's choreography (particularly Glitter and be Gay) and the four leads committment and surrender to the material.
Just one quibble: The aspirational and uplifting final anthem marred by the somewhat glib dialogue between Pangloss and Candide immediately prior to the song. This needs to be fixed. Take a look at Johnathan Miller and John Wells introduction to Make Our Garden Grow; lessons to be learned from that perfect encapsulation of the essence of the piece. Since Pangloss's final 'Any questions?' has been extracted from other libretti I would urge Mr Carsen to re-consider looking at this denoument again.
Still, I'll be recommending this show. Audacious, overwhelming and a thoroughly stimulating night at the theatre.
Here's looking to the next lease of life for this not inconsequential masterpiece.
Review from Andrea
A review of Candide by an American (Los Angeles).
The last time I saw Bernstein's "Candide" was at the Court Theater in Chicago in the mid 1990s. It was a small theater and a relatively "classical" production.
This version of Candide really blew my socks off. The orchestra and vocals are fantastic, especially the two leading roles of Cunegonde and Candide. I thought that the TV motif was rather clever and I particularly liked the Monroe-spinoff number (not too many details to spoil it for others). That was extremely well done! The idea of setting the show in 1950s America (and present day) was an interesting allusion to the era and events that clearly affected the composer and libretticist during the time the play was originally written.
At the same time, I thought some of the details of the plot were a bit off, and would need to be redone if you ever want to tour this show in the US. The KKK outfits at the inquisition were odd, given the HUAC original role in investigating KKK activities. Still, the idea of linking the auto-da-fe inquisition with the HUAC was an excellent allusion to the events related to Hellman in the 1950s. The scene at the immigration office would resonate with a lot of present day americans as immigration (and illegal immigration) is very much a "hot topic" right now in the states (although you should consider making Candide a Mexican if you want to play that card in the plot). The (presumably) Mormon scene in Salt Lake City was a bit off because the mormon's are better known for evangelical activities away from home than on their own turf. Some of the other American religious sects would work better for that part of the plot (although they won't have the same `name brand' recognition in the UK as the Mormons apparently have).
The scene in Las Vegas was cute but could have been jazzed up some more, given that it is Vegas we are talking about. If this were to run in the states, you should really find a way to work in a joke related to their current slogan "what happens in vegas stays in vegas".
I noticed a couple of times that the actors playing stereotypical americans switched inadvertantly back to british accents in a couple of places in the production. I suggest to watch that - it may not be so noticeable to someone from the UK, but to hear a guy in a an old t-shirt watching an american football game yell in a british accent destroys-to an american- some of the credibility of the performance. Also Cunegonde as "white trash" was kind of funny, but she looks a little too prissy in the scene - it could be milked a bit more for the stereotype-this combined with the accent thing made this scene less funny than it could have been.
The oil motif was useful for the plot. If you ever show this in the states, I suggest to consider having Candide go bankrupt from a sub-prime mortgage loan. Will probably get some more laughs/attention than the oil well. It would also tie in to Bush's later comment about America being bankrupt.
The last 30 minutes of the show tend to drag a bit. But this was, in my memory, a problem with the original version of Candide as well. Some punchier story lines and jokes might help to keep the energy up during this last bit.
Overall, this was a fun show, excellent music/singing in the spirit of Gilbert and Sullivan (as suggested by Bernstein himself). Mostly excellent pace and activity level. Highly entertaining. Bravo and Brava to the two leads.
Review from Augusta (aged 12)
If you have ever contemplated the `meaning of life` and needed some answers then this show is a must! Answers you will get but all it would seem, open to interpretation.
A vast T.V. screen greets the audience. You are soon sucked into an era of American nostalgia in the 1950s as the Orchestra plays an impressive overture. A comic Voltaire gives a short prologue introducing the Opera and the performance begins.
No sooner are we introduced to the main characters than we are wisked away into the trials and tribulations that follow Candide. He looses the love of his life -he thinks! By the end of act 1 they are re-united. The trend of loosing and finding his love is a thread throughout the show. Indeed, it is through this that Candide begins to make sense of the World. His optimism and enthusiasm becomes infectious as he refuses to accept the `darker side of life`. The elaborate inter-play of singing, dancing, and film, enhances Candides` story.
The main characters are larger than life and deliver wit and humour within their dialogue and song.
It is a show with a difference. It has a `feel good factor` but you are left with a profound sense of of realisation that we are all just doing the best we can, with the life that we have, in this World.
Review from Adele
Rarely have I seen such an exquisite production that transcends the boundaries of opera and musical theatre to create a unique, hybrid sound and visual was one of the most compelling things I have ever seen on the London stage and certainly at ENO. The casting and blend of lead voices was near perfection. Alex Jennings' acting and vocal versatility would be hard to match, as he seamlessly transforms from the narrator Voltaire into Dr. Pangloss and Martin. Toby Spence has one of the most tender tenor voices of his generation - his classical choral scholar training having served him well for the soft, lyrical contemplative notes in his solo moments. Having been fortunate enough to see Marnie Breckenridge's debut of Saturday's matinee, the adrenalin was visible as she gave a confident, polished, unblemished performance with clarity of diction and perfect tonality. A rare instance of an artist who looked and sounded the part with equal aplomb. The 'modernisation and Westernisation' was cleverly and sensitively done, without detracting from the original and subsequently revised versions.
I am disappointed that other London paper reviews have been giving this production a middling rating. Warwick Thompson's review and his meagre two star rating (Metro 20th June) clearly misses the intellectual rigour and solid philosophical premise upon which this revised production is based. Wonderful orchestration, wonderful orchestral playing, wonderful lead vocals, wonderful choral ensemble. The best of all possible musical worlds
Review from Graham
Last night, for me and my partner was an absolutely splendid ending to a wonderful season at the Coli. Lucia, Merry Widow, The Turn of the Screw and Rosenkavalier were all showing the ENO in a revived light but Candide is indeed the icing on the cake.
Would want to see it again but unfortunately no chance this season. Hope it is revived soon. I am sure that the word will get around.
That TV set certainly worked and there was an audible gasp as the vista opened up to infinity. We couldn't see the joins, you know. Better not spoil the surprises of the production for others but the last time I saw a screen anywhere near that large at the Coli was in the days of Cinerama! That gives my age away...
There were some Americans behind us and they quite simply enjoyed every moment.
It's also clear that the cast, orchestra and the rest of the team must have enjoyed immensely getting such a production together, as hard work as that must have been. That enthusiasm certainly was thrown out to the audience in droves, along with the more serious aspects of our troubled times that caught the audience just as certainly.
The idea to bring everyone out of the TV, false world onto the extreme forestage in the finale and to watch with us in the audience the scenes of devastation that we all seem to ignore is a Director's coup as the music draws to a close. And yet, how come the whole audience sits applauding for long after at the best production they will have seen for a long time? We all seem to have left the Coli. with a smile of wonderful satisfaction at having witnessed such a production. Oh my God! Is that a pimple on my face? Lucky, too, that I still retain both buttocks. Poor, mysterious old woman who suffered such an affliction.
We are so lucky to have The Coliseum.
In fact, I suppose my only regret is that Leonard Bernstein is not alive to have seen it. I doubt if he could improved upon your production - and he would have loved it.
Review from Julian
My wife and I saw the ENO Candide on 28th June. Leonard Bernstein's operetta Candide, premiered in New York in 1956, has gone through many revisions, with various librettists and producers making their own additions and refinements. What has remained untouched since Bernstein's death in 1990, and now will do so indefinitely, is the wonderful score, a pastiche with great vitality, wit and invention.
Written as a show for Broadway, it was originally a flop. Audiences at the previews in Boston and then in New York City could not categorize it in the same way as other musicals of the period, such as Carousel or The King and I. It is indeed a very different animal. Based on Voltaire's 1759 novella Candide, which was a lampooning of the Optimist philosophy of Leibnitz, Bernstein and his collaborators Lillian Hellman, the lyricist Richard Wilbur, Dorothy Parker and (at a later date) Stephen Sondheim, produced an acerbic political satire, fuelled in part by their anger about the horrific behavior of Senator Joseph McArthy and the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the early 50s. The references were subtle, but clear to audiences. The show folded after two months, but it has been revived all over the world since, on many occasions, sometimes by opera companies.
The production conceived by Robert Carson was first seen at La Scala, Milan at the end of 2006, then presented by Théâtre du Chatelet, Paris in 2007. It arrived at the Coliseum, performed by English National Opera, with a number of topical changes made to the text.
Updated to America in the mid 1950s, in West Failure (Westphalia in the original), the adaptation in some ways makes nonsense of Voltaire's plot. When Candide decides to travel to 'The New World' for a better life at the end of Act I, in this production he is already there. Such a basic misjudgement is typical of a number of anomolies that detract from the credibility of Carson's concept. Many of Bernstein's and Hellman's political targets, nicely disguised in the original show, are now rammed down the audience's throats, with Klu-Klux-Klan dancers ('Auto-da-fé - what a day'), and world leaders such as George Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair and others portrayed floating on an oil slick out at sea, instead of the deposed kings ('The Kings' Barcarolle'). In the revised text, forgetting the fact that the production is set in the 50s, there are cheap laughs obtained with quotes from movies, such as Some Like it Hot (1959), and gay waiters on the - wait for it - 'Titanic'. At least the clever device of having Voltaire himself narrate the show remains, and he also gets involved in the action, first as the ever-optimistic Dr Pangloss, Candide's tutor, and then as the pessimistic Martin, Pangloss's antithesis.
Some of the set scenes work well in their own right, such as the Las Vegas casino cabaret (the Venice carnival in the original). In these production numbers, however, there is no connection with the development of the plot, and they are often out of period, even for the 1950s. Another major problem is that much of the action is placed upstage, partially concealed by the outline of a TV screen that frames the entire proscenium arch. In short, the production values are muddled and confusing.
Musically things fared a little better, but not much. With the benefit of a large opera house orchestra, some of Bernstein's melodies were captivating. However, the overture was played without any sophistication or sufficient attendance to orchestral balance; the percussion was all too often allowed its head and the score sometimes sounded blowsy, which it is not.
The singers were all miked, chiefly because the dialogue would otherwise have been indecipherable. Also it allowed the principles to sing from upstage, far away from the audience, which became a real irritation. The whole cast was asked to adopt American accents, which most found beyond them.
The British tenor Toby Spence played Candide pleasantly, although his dialogue was unconvincing. He sang the ballads beautifully. It was not his fault that the sudden callousness that his character displays in this production was inappropriate and at odds with the innocence that Candide is supposed to maintain throughout the story. In addition, he was required to play the entire part (after the first scene set outside The White House in Washington DC!) in an unbecoming army combat outfit from WWII.
The American coloratura soprano Anna Christy was effective as Cunagonde, and she certainly entered into the spirit of the production when dressed as a Marilyn Monroe look-alike for the cabaret numbers. 'Glitter and be Gay' was particularly successful.
Cunagonde's brother Maximilian and the chambermaid Paquette were nicely played by Mark Stone and ENO young artist Mairéad Buicke, but the Old Lady who also becomes part of Candide's life was caricatured as a Jewish granny figure by a scene-stealing, over-the-top Beverley Klein.
Many of the other parts were doubled up or trebled, and sung well, but were one-dimensional from a dramatic point of view.
For this reviewer, the show was saved by Alex Jennings as Voltaire/Pangloss/Martin. He gave the production the necessary dramatic and sardonic flavor, and he performed the musical numbers extrememly well for a non-singing actor. His rendition as the poor tramp Martin of 'Words, Words, Words' was one of the highlights of the evening. For all his lines as Voltaire/Narrator, he spoke from in front of the TV screen at the very edge of the orchestra pit, and it was noticable that individually he was able to communicate with the audience much more effectively than the rest of the cast.
For the finale, the whole company were brought downstage for the stirring 'Make our Garden Grow'. It was an effective end to a mixed evening. The show got a resounding ovation from the audience - the absent producer deserved no cheers.
Review from Jane
What a wonderful evening we all shared last night at the Coliseum! From the very beginning, with that most wonderful of overtures played against footage of the golden years of America, we were in for a real treat. Alex Jennings' command of the proceedings was just masterly in all his guises, and Toby Spense and Anna Christy sang with great dexterity and beauty of tone throughout, and acting with great sincerity and knowing intelligence, respectively. How lovely to see and hear that great stalwart of ENO, Bonaventura Bottone, perform his characters - splendid!
It was hard to fault it - the orchestra played that rich, textured score with great gusto and it's always wonderful to hear them get their teeth into unusual (for them) scores. They triumphed.
Candide is not performed very often, and when I last saw it, at the National, I almost wept at the opening, as the orchestra was pared down to about a dozen players - not so at the Coli! What a fabulous sound, conducted with huge gusto by Rumon Gamba. I loved On the Town on its last outing, but this knocked that into a cocked hat!
Candide is a truly strange piece, and one can see the pawprints of many hands upon it... indeed, when you go to see it, you're never quite sure what will happen, as songs are put in and taken out and dialogue rewritten all the time, which is very unusual for such a piece of theatre... but it sort of fits the madness of the story, where characters are killed several times over and "with a single leap, he was free" is the order of the day. There was, though, such a moving speech by Alex Jennings (was he Voltaire or Pangloss at the time? - it matters not) describing how people had perished in the awfulness of war. The whole atmosphere of the theatre changed perceptibly, and it was a wonderful moment before the sheer lunacy of the plot kicked in once more.
As a lover of satire, I so enjoyed just sitting back and letting it all wash over me, and my fellow audience members were doing the same. It is a long evening but, apart from the unforgiving seats (in the Dress Circle, where the prices should guarantee comfort) I loved every second and didn't want it to end. The audience members around me all had smiles on their faces when the lights finally went up - we wanted to clap and cheer for a LONG time! - and we chatted to strangers, agreeing how superb it was. At last, ENO have really got the mix right with performing musicals - acting, singing, playing and dancing were of a tremendously high standard and the sets and costumes were inventive and dazzling.
Congratulations to all concerned - more of this, and the awful memory of Kismet will recede quickly. A very satisfied patron
