CANDIDE

Comic opera in two acts
Libretto by Hug Wheeler based on Voltaire’s novella of the same name

In 1755 an earthquake devastates Lisbon. Europe is shaken and intellectuals question: is it ever possible to argue like Leibniz that this is the best of all possible worlds? Voltaire bitingly responds with the novella Candide, a journey of the naive protagonist and his master Pangloss of unwavering optimism. Three centuries later, the world has not yet recovered from World War II and finds itself in the Cold War. The United States presents itself as an ideal world, but persecutes its artists and intellectuals. Leonard Bernstein is also targeted by McCarthyism, which he in turn pillories by renewing Voltaire’s satire. A first draft in 1956, various textual revisions over the years and a revision in 1989 confirm, in spite of the cold critical reception at the debut, the vitality of an ironic, light and profound operetta, overwhelming in musical invention, worthy of one of the greatest conductors, composers, communicators and intellectuals of the 20th century.