Do we live in the best of all possible worlds? Then we have a companion in Candide. Stuck as a poor cousin in the deep as well as dim provinces of Somewhere, the naive contemporary is urged by the moral private tutor instance of Pangloss to think everything that happens is the best of all providence.
The literary model, Voltaire's famous novel, appeared in 1759 with the addition of ".Or Optimism", itself an ironic reference to the intrusions of reality into God's "most perfect of worlds". In a rebellious troupe of young American intellectual artists around the musical genius Leonard Bernstein, a work full of intelligent protest, satire, exposure of timeless ills of bigotry and stupidity in the world anew was born. In the Fifties of the USA, the land of unlimited possibilities, it was about denouncing the trials of un-American behaviour. But even today, characters don't have to look far to run into absurd events and uncontrollable dangers to themselves and those closest to them.
As a disaster tourist of the first order, the more he tries to avoid them through servility and propriety, the more surely Candide is beset by blows of fate. Cast out by his family as indecent, he falls victim to the Lisbon earthquake in search of his great love Cunegonde, is persecuted by the Inquisition and forced to join the military, witnesses the abuse of various religions, power and money for personal gain, encounters vice, decay, betrayal and fatal diseases - but nothing stops him from believing in a meaningful, good destiny. No taboo is left out to demonstrate surrender to fate and forced optimism.
Have you ever been a victim of reality? Then take a journey through world and opera history with Candide, let Bernstein's brilliantly racy sounds accompany you, and land at the end of the eventful evening - where? Satisfied in the tranquil front garden of your own dreams of a simple and quiet life. Or is that too optimistic a thought?
Source and further information: http://www.staatstheater-wiesbaden.de/programm/spielplan/2019-01/candide/4594/
