CANDIDE Comes to Madison Opera Next Month

Madison Opera Will Close its 23/24 mainstage season with its first production in over 30 years of Candide, Leonard Bernstein’s beloved American opera.  Based on Voltaire’s satirical novella, Candide mixes a dazzling score with comedy, tragedy, and impossible situations that result in a sublime whole.  Performances are April 26 at 8pm and April 28 at 2:30pm in Overture Hall.

Set in 18th century Europe, Candide tells of a naïve young man who has been taught by his tutor Dr. Pangloss that this is the best of all possible worlds. Exiled from his home after caught kissing his beloved Cunegonde, Candide gets swept up in a series of adventures that test his belief in Dr. Pangloss’ teachings.  As he travels the world, from Lisbon to Paris, Buenos Aires, Eldorado, and Venice, he is beset by a seemingly endless series of disasters, including war, an earthquake, and a shipwreck.  By turns funny, moving, and deeply philosophical, Candide ends in the greatest finale in opera.

Candide was Leonard Bernstein’s fifth theater piece, premiering the year before West Side Story.  When Candide opened on Broadway in 1956, one critic called it “the best light opera since Richard Strauss wrote Der Rosenkavalier.”  It was nonetheless a box office failure, but its cast album became a favorite of music lovers.  In the decades that followed, Candide was rewritten multiple times, with new lyrics, new books, and even new music.  Its roster of lyricists includes Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Richard Wilbur, John Latouche, Stephen Sondheim, and Bernstein himself.  The result has now taken its place as one of the great American operas.

“Candide is a simply glorious piece,” says Kathryn Smith, Madison Opera’s General Director.  “No other opera has such a mixture of the sublime and the absurd, of impossible situations that both entertain and move.  I am so delighted to be sharing it with Madison audiences, particularly with this amazing cast and colorful production.”

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