Friday, May 7, 2004

The director Lonny Price has assembled a hybrid version for the inventive semi-staged production that the New York Philharmonic presented at Avery Fisher Hall on Wednesday night, with two remaining performances tonight and tomorrow. It's a vibrant and often delightful show, except for the frequent, annoying and tasteless lapses into dumb topical jokes and sight gags that Mr. Price inserted into his adaptation of Hugh Wheeler's book. When, in just one of the disasters the exiled Candide encounters on his travels, he is condemned to death, the judge is portrayed as Donald Trump in a wavy wig, who is reading his own autobiography as he tells the young man, ''You're fired!''

The lapses were all the more unfortunate because much of the production was beguiling, starting with the fine conducting of Marin Alsop. Bernstein's score is itself a hybrid of wistfully lyrical songs, impish caricatures of opera and skillfully rendered pastiches of everything from Renaissance sacred music to slinky tangos. But many conductors, nervous about the stylistic mixings, can't help overselling the music by milking the tender melodies and pumping up the dances and patter songs.

Bernstein was an important mentor to Ms. Alsop, and she remains one of his most sensitive interpreters. From the start of the sprightly overture, she kept the pace lithe but reined in enough to allow the notes to speak. She had clearly worked with the splendid cast to find tempos that would allow them to enunciate the lyrics. She proved that the way to make the charm and richness of this score come through is to respect the music. The Philharmonic responded with stylish and beautifully relaxed playing.

The cast was topped by the irrepressible Kristin Chenoweth as Cunegonde, the bastard Candide's aristocratic half-cousin and the young woman he adores.

Ms. Chenoweth ably handled the stratospheric coloratura roulades of the show-stopping and vocally daunting ''Glitter and Be Gay,'' all the while acting the scene dynamically and shifting moods by the measure, one moment the teary-eyed innocent forced into sexual degradation, the next a savvy operator who finds compensation aplenty in her ruby rings and golden gowns.

She capped her triumphant final note with her arms thrust high, à la ''Evita,'' a witty nod to the presence in the cast of the formidable Patti LuPone. Ms. LuPone has the role of the Old Lady, who during several rambling narratives in myriad exotic accents relating her life of romance and tragedy never does explain why she has only one buttock.

Opera singers can often seem like classical-music stiffs when working alongside musical-theater pros. But the tenor Paul Groves more than held his own as an endearingly good-hearted and befuddled Candide. He gets the award for best diction of the night; he sang as if speaking to you.

Still, his performance was undermined by Mr. Price's inserted gags. When Candide is banished from Westphalia, just as Mr. Groves was singing Bernstein's poignant meditation ''It Must Be So'' with heartbreaking sweetness, Mr. Price had Candide pack a copy of the LP recording of ''West Side Story'' into his suitcase. Naturally, the audience burst into hearty laughter.

Thomas Allen, the distinguished British baritone, was an inspired choice for the multiple roles of Dr. Pangloss, the Narrator and Voltaire. Still, the elegant Sir Thomas seemed visibly uncomfortable now and then when he had to utter some lame topical joke, as when the Narrator explains that the Inquisition was unrivaled for its combination of the sacred and profane until the onset of the United States Senate. Huh?

Janine LaManna as Paquette, the maid, and Jeff Blumenkrantz as Maximillian, Cunegonde's vain brother, were the other two members of the youthful quartet who learn that there is no such thing as a best of all possible worlds. The choral finale, ''Make Our Garden Grow,'' which begins with Candide's vow to build a simple, decent life for himself and his beloved, was sung with resplendent sound by the Westminster Symphonic Choir. I wish they had repeated it, if only to banish memories of all the pointless jokes.

"Candide" must be the best-loved flop of all time. The bubbling, exuberant mess of a show concocted by a few too many cooks in 1956 and 1973 has returned, this time for a four-night stand, courtesy of the New York Philharmonic. This may be the piece's perfect habitat: Here, the orchestra can sound in all its Technicolor glory, rather than be squeezed through the toothpaste tube of Broadway-style amplification. The sets can be reduced to handheld painted signs, the cast can stay jazzed every night and, best of all, every show can be sold out.

Lillian Hellman, Hugh Wheeler, John Latouche, Stephen Sondheim and the poet Richard Wilbur all had a hand in the florid cornucopia of verbiage, but the score is by Leonard Bernstein alone. The Philharmonic is Bernstein's old band and the conductor, Marin Alsop, was a Bernstein protege, so the performance had the sizzle of authenticity. All that learned larceny - the Jewish tango of "I'm Easily Assimilated," the Viennese operetta sparkle of "Glitter and Be Gay," the sonorous Inquisition chants, the triumph-over- ordeal music right out of "The Magic Flute" - is still second nature to an orchestra that Bernstein led from 1958 to 1969. Alsop conducts this kind of frothy Americana so well that the Philharmonic rarely lets her do anything else.

"Candide" chronicles the intercontinental meanderings of a stubbornly sunny young man and his entourage from one horror to the next. They slog through swamps of ethnic jokes and overcooked double-entendres, finally attaining a bit of politico-philosophical wisdom that, deracinated from the 18th century novella by Voltaire on which the musical is based, hardly bears dwelling on. The director Lonnie Price has become supremely inventive about weaving a show around a symphony orchestra. Even with all those sedentary musicians occupying the center of the stage, he still provided as much antic, high-camp stage business as anybody could desire.

But the show's charms were always mostly musical, and the Philharmonic made sure that that those qualities were luxuriously served. The operatic tenor Paul Groves endowed the title role with an endearing mix of goofball sincerity and sophisticated vocal technique. The veteran British baritone Thomas Allen brought his impeccable "Masterpiece Theater" charm to the double role of Pangloss and narrator.

Kristen Chenoweth, who seems to discover a few more high notes every time she opens her mouth, was born to be Cunegonde. When the show was last on Broadway, in 1997, Harolyn Blackwell made her a creature of indestructible innocence; Chenoweth gave her a raunchy soul.

The only clinker was Patti LuPone, who seemed to have wandered into this show from some hoary vaudeville routine. Relegated to the supporting role of the Old Lady, she played it instead as Our Lady of the Perpetual Spotlight, mugging and screeching in a threadbare Russian accent and upstaging even the music she was given to sing.

CANDIDE. Music by Leonard Bernstein. Book by Hugh Wheeler, based on Voltaire. Lyrics by a passel of lyricists. Directed by Lonnie Price. With Kristen Chenoweth, Patti LuPone, Paul Groves and Thomas Allen. New York Philharmonic and Westminster Symphonic Choir, conducted by Marin Alsop. Attended at Wednesday's opening. Repeated tonight and tomorrow. Tonight's performance will be broadcast live at 8 on WNYC / 93.9 FM.

The Associated Press
May 7, 2004

The Leonard Bernstein operetta flopped on Broadway in 1956, but has lived on ever since in its original cast recording and in innumerable opera houses and concert halls around the world.

One can see why. Bernstein's witty score is thrilling, the most ambitious musical of the 1950s and maybe of the last five decades. The composer may be showing off (his versatility is staggering), but there is a purpose to all his high-flying musical conceits. The melodies are beautifully played here by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Marin Alsop.

Based on Voltaire's satiric diatribe against eternal optimism, the book for this "Candide" (Hugh Wheeler's revised version) is as messy as the show's music is glorious. We follow the misadventures of Candide, a dunderhead of a young man, around the world, from his home in Westphalia to Lisbon, Paris, Cadiz, Montevideo, Eldorado, Surinam, Constantinople and back to Westphalia.

Along the way there is war, pillage, rape and more. Somehow, the naive Candide, ever-smiling, survives. So does Cunegonde, his even more resilient love. In the end, though, they realize that this may not be "the best of all possible worlds" and it's wise to accept the realities of life.

Paul Groves makes a stocky, sturdy hero, a boyish Hummel figurine come to life. His voice is rich and smooth, and Groves has impeccable diction, something not all the cast members possess.

The biggest names in this semi-staged production are its two leading ladies — Broadway divas Kristin Chenoweth, taking a week off from her hit musical "Wicked," and Patti LuPone.

Chenoweth has the unenviable task of playing Cunegonde, and going up against the indelible recording of "Glitter and Be Gay" by Barbara Cook, the show's original Broadway heroine. She doesn't quite make you forget the amazing Cook in terms of vocal ability, but Chenoweth does possess a sure sense of comedy and an endearing stage presence.

LuPone, of course, is equally adept at getting laughs, playing the Old Lady, Cunegonde's constant and complaining companion.

Opera star Thomas Allen, in superb voice, does double duty as the evening's narrator and as Dr. Pangloss, Candide's tutor in the fine art of putting the best face on every situation. And there is yeoman support from several other musical-theater performers including Jeff Blumenkrantz, Janine LaManna, Michael McCormick, John Herrera, Ray Wills and Michael McElroy.

Director Lonny Price makes a determined effort to keep things bubbly — and often silly. There are a lot of sight gags and some funny product placement. Watch for the Starbucks logo and Bloomingdale's little brown bag.

Price puts the large Westminster Symphonic Choir (dressed in sweaters and sweat pants) way upstage, making its members look like a placard cheering section at a college football game. In fact, that's exactly how these fine singers are used, visually dispensing words of wisdom about "this best of all possible worlds." The engagement ends Saturday.