Musicals Taught Me Everything I Know

This week we chat with Shannon Foley about which of life's truths can be gleaned from philosophical and incredibly not-historical opera/operetta/musical/whatever - Candide!

The tale that Voltaire's classic satire tells is long and winding. And the tale of the Broadway show or (as Bernstein called it) American operetta to its present state as quintessential American opera (or music theater piece) is also long and winding. Over the years the piece got new books, new numbers, additional lyrics and new orchestrations until Bernstein finally conducted the full score in London with narration and a cast of opera stars.

Since then Bernstein's "Candide" has belonged more to the opera house and concert stage than to Broadway. Many things to many people, "Candide" tempts interpreters. A wonderful musical performance by the New York Philharmonic in 2004, which was televised, was subverted by harebrained semi-staging. Two years later, a scandalous, politically way-incorrect opera production in Paris satirized a drunken chorus line of state leaders in skivvies (Bush, Blair, Berlusconi, Putin and Chirac, to be exact).

- Mark Swed

- FURTHER READING -

Wiki - Candide, ou l'Optimisme, Musical, Leonard Bernstein, Voltaire, Lillian Hellman, Hugh Wheeler, Dorothy Parker, Stephen Sondheim, John Mauceri, John Wells, Age of Enlightenment

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