When the operetta was ready for its debut, Bernstein was also working on the score for “West Side Story.” Since then it has seen a number of revisions leading up to a 1989 version which Bernstein felt truly captured the essence of the operetta. Playwright and librettist Lillian Hellman saw clear parallels between the Inquisition of Voltaire’s time and the surge of anti-Communist fervor that was coming from Washington during her own time.Ī number of lyricists were attached to the project after the original one, John LaTouche, was replaced by poet Richard Wilbur. Making its premiere on December 1st, 1956, Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” is adapted from a novella of the same name written by the Enlightenment-era philosopher Voltaire.īeing a comic operetta, it satirizes the prevailing attitudes of Voltaire’s time, particularly those of the church and of monarchism.
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