Overture Magazine - 2014-2015 May-June 2015 | Page 39

program notes {

Candide’s Globe-Trotting Plot

Act I: The story opens in German Westphalia, where the naive young Candide,
the illegitimate nephew of the Baron
Thunder-ten-Tronck, is in love with the
Baron’s beautiful daughter, Cunégonde.
Candide and Cunégonde are pupils of
Dr. Pangloss, who has diligently taught
them that “all is for the best in the best of
all possible worlds.” The Baron opposes
their marriage because Candide is a social inferior. The gullible Candide joins
the Bulgar Army, which then attacks
Westphalia and slays all its inhabitants,
including Cunégonde.
Now a wandering beggar, Candide
tries to hold on to Pangloss’ maxims even
though when he meets the philosopher,
he finds him ill with syphilis. They arrive
in Lisbon as the earthquake strikes and
then are seized by the Inquisition and
condemned to death. Pangloss is hanged,
but Candide escapes. Meanwhile in Paris,
Cunégonde is in fact alive and living as a
high-class prostitute showered with jewels.
The astonished Candide is reunited with
her, but after he inadvertently kills her
protectors, the two flee along with her
companion, the Old Lady, to Spain, and
then on to the New World.
Act II: The trio arrive in Buenos Aires,
where the Governor falls in love with
Cunégonde. Candide is forced to flee to the
South American jungle, where he discovers the paradise of El Dorado. But without
Cunégonde, he finds no happiness there
and flees to Surinam, after stealing El Dorado’s golden sheep. There he spends all he
has on an unseaworthy vessel to take him
back to Europe. In Venice at Carnival time,
Candide and the pleasure-loving Cunégonde are again reunited at the vice-ridden
casino. Disillusioned at last, Candide
returns to Westphalia, where, fully aware
of her weaknesses, he marries Cunégonde.

Realizing at last that “Life is neither bad
nor good,” they decide to buy a little farm,
cultivate their garden, and “do the best
we know.”
The Music of Candide

Bernstein called the score of Candide a
Valentine card to European music. In the
words of biographer Humphrey Burton:
“European dance forms such as the gavotte,
mazurka, polka, schottische, and waltz pop
up all over the place. The conventions of
European opera are gently mocked: when
the lovers are reunited for the surrealistic
duet, ‘You Were Dead, You Know,’ they
warble in thirds and sixths in the best bel
canto style.” Thus, the score is a pastiche of
musical styles, both classical and popular,
conjured up by Bernstein, the musical magpie who could borrow from the vast store of
music he knew and frequently conducted.
The incandescent Overture has
become a favorite concert opener on
its own. Flying at breakneck speed, it
pumps of the adrenaline of players and
listeners and reatures two of the show’s
big tunes. The romantic love duet, “Oh,
Happy We,” and the wacky closing music

from Cundgonde’s send-up of coloraturasoprano arias, “Glitter and Be Gay”
The most operatic numbers in this
production are Candide’s arias—the two
Meditations of Act I set to the same music
(“It Must Be So” and “It Must Be Me”),
“Candide’s Lament” for the supposedly
dead Cunégonde with its superb high
pianissimo passages.
Classical arias are balanced by the irresistible comic songs with their sophisticated
word settings, such as Pangloss’ lesson,
“The Best of All Possible Worlds;” the Old
Lady’s tango, “I Am Easily Assimilated;”
and the crazed, cynical waltz, “What’s the
Use.” But, Bernstein’s last musical word,
“Make Our Garden Grow,” is completely
from the heart, voiced in the soaring,
utterly personal lyrical style that would
blossom again in West Side Story.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, oboe,
English horn, two clarinets, E-flat clarinet,
bass clarinet, bassoon, two horns, two trumpets,
two trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion,
harp and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, Copyright ©2015

The BSO

May– June 2015 |

O v ertur e

Ch r is Lee

by audiences and critics. As his last word
on his beloved but misunderstood work,
Bernstein, now fatally ill with cancer,
made an acclaimed studio recording of
Candide in 1989 with the London Symphony Orchestra and a cast of international operatic stars including Jerry Hadley,
June Anderson, and Christa Ludwig.

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