- Candide is a comic operetta (1956) based on Voltaire’s satirical novel Candide (1759)1
- Candide premiered in Boston, 1956, not particularly successful; revised 1973 with different lyrics, truncated score, presented to greater success in New York production by Harold Prince.2
- Voltaire’s Candide is a send-up of Enlightenment philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, whose belief that everything happens for a reason led to the conclusion that this is the “best of all possible worlds” (in the words of Voltaire’s character Pangloss). Having recently lived through the Seven Years’ War and other seemingly pointless disasters, Voltaire wrote Candide to ridicule Leibniz’s optimism.3
- Story: Candide is taught by his tutor Pangloss that everything happens for the best, but then he experiences a bizarre and unrelenting series of disasters which eventually lead him to exchange optimism for realism.4
- Bernstein’s charming and zany music provides a contrast with the dark plot points, highlighting the tension between optimism and realism in the story5
- Listen for: a recurring motif from throughout the opera associated with Candide’s optimistic point of view: a rising octave followed by two falling steps.6
Sources
- Jon Alan Conrad, “Candide,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2002), accessed July 25, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000900983.
- Paul R. Laird and David Schiff, “Bernstein, Leonard,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press: 2012), accessed July 25, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-1002223796.
- Sarah Dillon, “Candide,” Encyclopædia Britannica (March 7, 2019), accessed July 25, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Candide-by-Voltaire.
- Conrad, “Candide,” Grove Music Online.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
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