sign in sign up
<<
Home , Candide (operetta), John Wells (satirist), Lillian Hellman, Max Adrian, Richard Wilbur, Robert Rounseville

NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

An Introduction and Bernstein’s plunge us from a fool’s world of naiveté to a pain- ful world of war, natural disasters, tragedy, fear of commitment, fear of facts, all cast under a cloud of faux sentimentality—yet with a wink towards truth and love. What an honor it is for The Knights to celebrate in his musical home of Tanglewood with a work that encompasses all of his brilliant contradictions. Bernstein was both a man of his century and ahead of his time—socially, politically, and musically—which makes his centennial feel youthful and timely if not timeless. He lived through some of the world’s darkest times of war, fear, and terror, and his outpouring of joy, love, humor, love, generosity, love, and truth spill from him like it has from only a few geniuses before him. “You’ve been a fool, and so have I.... We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good” (Voltaire, Candide). Bernstein found a fellow optimis- tic jester in Voltaire. Voltaire wrote “It is love; love, the comfort of the human species, the preserver of the universe, the soul of all sentient beings, love, tender love.” Bernstein’s music embodies this senti- ment. Together, they show us many beautiful and joyous puzzle pieces that connect our imperfect best-of-all-possible-worlds.

ERIC JACOBSEN, THE KNIGHTS

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) “Candide” A Very Brief History Bernstein composed Candide from 1954 through August 1956, with assisting with the ; the was by , based on the novella Candide, ou l’Optimisme, by Voltaire, the pen name of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778). The show was unveiled at a try-out in Bos- ton on October 29, 1956, and reached Broadway on December 1 of that year, at the Martin Beck Theatre. The original production was directed by and conducted by , with a cast including (Candide), (Cunegonde), (Dr. Pangloss), and Irra Petini (Old Lady). The score underwent revisions for ensuing productions, with adaptations to the book coming from and to the text from Hellman, , John Latouche, , , , , and Bernstein himself. The version being heard here (though with some cuts in the present performances) was created for Scottish in 1988— the score carried the notation “Adapted for Scottish Opera by John Wells and John Mauceri”—and was unveiled by that on May 19, 1988, at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow (a preview took place on May 17), conducted by Mauceri and directed by Wells and . The cast included Mark Beudert (Candide), Marilyn Hill Smith (Cunegonde), (Dr. Pangloss), and Ann Howard (Old Lady).

SEIJI OZAWA HALL PROGRAM NOTES 53

Ozawa2 2018.indd 53 7/26/18 4:09 PM The Background The story of Leonard Bernstein’s —or musical comedy, or opera—Candide is convoluted and, in the end, rather unhappy, an unfortunate situation for a work whose music and lyrics are overwhelmingly ebullient and even madcap. Voltaire is to blame for the whole affair, since it was his novella Candide, ou l’Optimisme (1759) that so captivated Bernstein that the composer struggled for more than three decades to find the right way to translate it for the musical stage. To Voltaire we owe the tale of the wide-eyed hero Candide whose trips to distant points of the globe invariably turn into dismal misadventures, much though he may be assured by his idealistic tutor, Doctor Pangloss, that every- thing is for the best. Voltaire published his novella in 1759 as a satirical, persuasive rebuttal to the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leib- nitz’s philosophical assertion that “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds,” a necessary consequence of God being a benevolent deity. Voltaire, however, saw bad things happening all around, including such contemporary Voltaire (1694-1778) occurrences as the Earthquake of 1755 (which may have killed up to 100,000 people) and the Seven Years’ War (1756-63, leaving bodies strewn on battlefields throughout Europe). The whole idea struck Voltaire as palpably absurd. How does blatant violence fit into Leibnitz’s contention? What about ship- wrecks? Slavery? The Inquisition? Candide has to deal with them all in the course of this tale, and by the time he reaches the end of his journey he has become a wiser, if more cynical, young man, disabused of automatic optimism and intent on finding happiness where he can, achieving a measure of contentment in just making his garden grow. In the fall of 1953, Lillian Hellman suggested the idea of collaborating with Bern- stein on a stage work based on Candide, an earlier project they had flirted with, on the subject of Eva Perón, having failed to take root. By January 1954, Bernstein was committed to the effort, which he initially envisioned as a full-scale, three-act opera. Hellman began fashioning Voltaire’s novella into a book for the show (often mak- ing adaptations nowhere suggested in the original novella), and John Latouche and Richard Wilbur were enlisted to pen the lyrics, although Hellman, Dorothy Parker, and Bernstein himself all added further contributions to the script. It seemed like a fine idea, but the slender volume posed more problems than any- one had anticipated. It is a picaresque novel in which the hero zips around the globe encountering one situation after another, rarely staying put long enough for any of them to undergo much development. It makes for entertaining, even breath- less reading, but turning it into a stage piece was not an easy matter. How would one instill a sense of unity in an operetta that begins in the “Teutonical rusticity” of Westphalia, ends outside , and trots across the globe in between? Hellman had written “well-made plays” and movie scripts before, such as ; but notwithstanding her vaunted wit, she had never penned a comedy, which is what this show needed to be. Director Tyrone Guthrie was at a similar disadvantage. His credentials were impeccable; his curriculum vitae included directing at the Metro- politan Opera and Sadler’s Wells, heading , and even serving as found- ing director of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada. But Broadway was virgin territory to him, and he seemed not always in sync with the rough-and-tumble entailed in revisions and quick turnarounds. Some of Bernstein’s composition of Candide overlapped with his work on . On the face of it, the two stage works seem entirely dissimilar—Candide a descen- dant of European operetta, West Side Story a profoundly American paean to urban grittiness. Despite the disparity, music flowed in both directions between the two

SEIJI OZAWA HALL PROGRAM NOTES 55

Ozawa2 2018.indd 55 7/26/18 4:09 PM scores: the duet “O Happy We” in Candide started life as a discarded duet between Tony and Maria in West Side Story, while West Side Story’s “One Hand, One Heart” and “Gee, Officer Krupke” originated in Candide before finding their proper places. Bernstein said that his score was a valentine to European music. Traditional light- opera forms populate the piece throughout, although often modernized through Bernstein’s infectious off-kilter rhythms: , mazurka, polka (“We Are Women”), schottische (“Bon Voyage”), tango (“I Am Easily Assimilated”)—sometimes parodisti- cally, sometimes not. The lovers’ duet “You Were Dead, You Know,” borrows details from the bel canto conventions of Bellini, and Cunegonde’s famous waltz- “Glitter and Be Gay” is a first cousin to the “Jewel Song” in Gounod’s Faust. Following a try-out in Boston, Candide opened in on December 1, 1956, and played for seventy-three performances at the Martin Beck Theatre, long enough to prove in some measure respectable and to pique the interest of sophisticated music lovers, but not long enough to be considered a triumph by Broadway stan- dards. The production was plagued by internecine squabbles and finger-pointing, and nobody involved seemed grief-stricken when it closed. Thus began the saga of the work that gave Bernstein more headaches than any other. Candide was transformed considerably in the course of later emendations. Hellman did not allow her book—neither her words nor the locales she specified— to be used for the 1973 version staged by Hal Prince at the Chelsea Theatre Center, so on that occasion a new libretto, reduced to a single act from the original two, was created by Hugh Wheeler, with Stephen Sondheim joining Wilbur, Latouche, and Bernstein on the list of the show’s lyricists. Unfortunately, some marvelous musical numbers needed to be omitted for that incarnation of the piece. Permutations, com- binations, and revisions of either or both of those two versions charted Candide’s uncertain history, some emphasizing the score’s operatic elements, others its musical comedy streak. Bernstein was directly involved in at least seven versions of Candide, some of which differ vastly from each other. None proved definitive, although each had his blessing at least provisionally. In 1989, the composer led a concert perform- ance in London—in a version preserved on recordings—that stands as his last sign-off on the opera that had puzzled him for thirty-three years. It is impossible to point to any one version as the best of all possible Candides. The one we hear in this performance was prepared for a 1988 production by the Scottish Opera in Glasgow. It uses about forty percent of all the Candide music that had accu-

Classical.org The premiere digital classical music experience

56

Ozawa2 2018.indd 56 7/26/18 4:09 PM mulated in the course of the many revisions, and it is the shortest of all the versions, running just under two hours. The defining success of this version may be the bal- ance it found in upholding the musical standards expected from a reputable opera house while being produced on the nightly schedule of a typical musical comedy. It preserves a sense of intimacy (the Glasgow theater being of modest size) and is scaled so as to not try the patience of the audience. The production scored a resounding success and was televised in Great Britain by the BBC, though copyright restrictions prevented its being aired elsewhere. Jonathan Miller’s direction (a collaboration with John Wells) was roundly applauded, and that Christmas, he revived the show for a short run at London’s Old Vic. The production was honored with the Olivier Award for best musical of the year.

JAMES M. KELLER James M. Keller is the longtime program annotator of the and San Francisco Symphony, and served as Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic. This program note originally appeared in the programs of the San Francisco Symphony and is used with permission. © James M. Keller.

The Story Act I In the castle of the Baron of Westphalia, Dr. Pangloss tutors four children: Cunegonde and Maximilian (the Baron’s daughter and son), Paquette (a servant girl), and Can- dide (a bastard cousin). He is intent on instilling the optimistic idea that “everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” (Voltaire steps in now and again as a narrator to explain plot details.) When Candide and Cunegonde fall in love, Can- dide is banished, the match being deemed socially undesirable. He joins the Bulgar Army in its campaign against Westphalia, during which Cunegonde is killed—or so it appears. Candide deserts, and he reunites with Dr. Pangloss. They travel to Lisbon and get swept up in a trial before the Inquisition. Candide is flogged, Dr. Pangloss is hanged, and a volcano erupts. Candide flees to . There he encounters Cunegonde, who has survived after all. She is now the mistress of two men—a nobleman and a cardinal archbishop—but she and Candide escape via Cadiz to the New World, along with an Old Lady and a South American named Cacambo.

Act II In Buenos Aires, they find Maximilian and Paquette, who are enslaved by the Governor. Candide stabs Maximilian in an argument over Cunegonde. Candide and Cacambo have a perilous encounter with the Mump Indians but travel on to El Dorado. Enriched with gold, Cacambo returns to Buenos Aires to purchase Cunegonde back from the Governor. Candide, similarly enriched, loads his gold onto sheep and heads with them back to Europe in a dilapidated ship. They are accompanied by a pessimistic old Dutchman he has encountered—Martin, who believes that this is “the worst of all possible worlds.” The ship sinks, the sheep disperse, and Martin drowns. Candide ends up in Venice, by chance reunited with Dr. Pangloss and Maximilian (surprisingly not dead), and finds Cunegonde and the Old Lady in a casino. All the old friends retire to a farm in the Venetian countryside, which Candide has purchased with what remains of his El Dorado gold. Grown wiser through their misadventures, they now agree that it is advisable to accept what life offers and to make one’s garden grow.

JAMES M. KELLER

SEIJI OZAWA HALL PROGRAM NOTES 57

Ozawa2 2018.indd 57 7/26/18 4:09 PM