Review: CANDIDE at Museumsquartier Halle E

Leonard Bernstein's masterpiece, Candide, is back in Vienna for a strictly limited run. Based on Voltaire's 18th-century novel, Bernstein created a so-called comic operetta, or as some might say, a musical in an old-fashioned way. You may call it whatever you want. At the end of the evening, it is a beautifully crafted piece of art.

Matthew Newlin (Candide) got involved in disasters wherever he went; the world turned out to be a miserable place for the leading man, from war to plagues, earthquakes, and many other undesirable events, to discover that we are not living in the best of all worlds. Everything he learned from his teacher Pangloss (Ben Mcateer) got upside down, the optimist is faced with the brutal reality.

Candide was pushed to the edge by director Lydia Steier. Steier did what she is well-known for, giving the piece depth and greatness.

It feels like a road movie from the Cohen brothers with a pinch of Tarantino's heroism loser attitude, a reckless mix in a picturesque set design filled with explicit scenes and honest drama. Our society is presented as comic relief.

She innovated the part of the Narrator(played by the great Vincent Glander). This smug and sickly ironic grouch guides us through Candide's complex adventures and holds up the show's tempo and sinister amusement.

The ORF Radio Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by Marin Alsop, a true Bernstein expert, is as immense as the onstage happening.
Bernstein's score is full of surprises, a musical journey through Europe, familiar, fresh, and vital, not following the usual Oper rules, enthusiastically interpreted by Alsop.

 
Humans have enjoyed the happiness of the misfortune of others for ages as profoundly entertaining, and that's what Candide is: profoundly entertaining.

It is "a lot" it's bold, vulgar, sincere, sarcastically and honestly mean, a timelessly spectacular comic operetta (or whatever you might call it)

Candide learned an important lesson: we are not living in the best of worlds; it's just ours, darker occasionally, and we must take care of our world, our garden.

 

Music by Leonard Bernstein
Book by Hugh Wheeler after Voltaire
Lyrics by Richard Wilbur

with additional lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, John LaTouche, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and Leonard Bernstein.
Instrumentation by Leonard Bernstein and Hershy Kay 
Musical transitions and additional orchestration by John Mauceri 
Narrative text for concert performances by Leonard Bernstein and John Wells, 
based on the satire by Voltaire and the book by Hugh Wheeler; 
arranged and completed by Erik Haagensen

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