View: Next message | Previous message Next in topic | Previous in topic Next by same author | Previous by same author Previous page (April 1999, week 4) | Back to main OPERA-L page Join or leave OPERA-L Reply | Post a new message Search Options: Ê Chronologically | Most recent first Proportional font | Non-proportional font ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Apr 1999 02:13:19 +0000 Reply-To: "H.E.Elsom" Sender: Discussion of opera and related issues From: "H.E.Elsom" Subject: Candide, National Theatre, 24Apr99 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Simon Russell Beale Voltaire/Pangloss Daniel Evans Candide Alex Kelly Cunegonde Simon Day Maximilian Elizabeth Renihan Paquette Beverly Klein Old Woman Clive Rowe Cacambo David Burt Governor Alexander Hanson Vanderdendur Denis Quilley Martin Richard Henders, Chu Omambala, Ceri Ann Gregory, David Arneil, Michael Wildman, Claudia Cadette, Gabrielle Jordan, Samantha Lavender, Leigh McDonald, Myra Sands, Jax Williams, Robert Burt, Charles Millham, Gilz Terrera, Mark Umbers John Caird Director Mark W Dorrell Music Director Yet another new version. This one, by the director John Caird, has most of the music from Bernstein's 1988 concert version, reworked lyrics by Richard Wilbur and allegedly also by Stephen Sondheim and a new book which goes back to Voltaire. Voltaire also appears an on-stage narrator and puppet-master, who becomes Pangloss by putting on a pair of spectacles and doing a camp accent. The main effect of the rework is to make the whole thing more-or-less coherent theatrically, which is a substantial achievement when it really consists of a series of complex and internally resonant cabaret songs, of which only a few deal with the main themes of the story. The satire on war, religion and stupidity gets short changed in the music -- only the auto da fe scene really deals with it -- but Voltaire's narrative delivers it unambiguously in a tone which manages to be consistent with the songs. On the other hand, some of the cruelty of the narrative is lost. For example, Voltaire says that Cunegonde is rumoured to have been ravished and disembowelled, leaving open the possibility that she hasn't been. A complex joke about romance narrative and optimism is lost. Somewhat similarly, we see Pangloss being hanged, in an obvious theatrical trick with a dummy as he becomes Voltaire again, but he doesn't survive because of the trick -- he survives by a gruesome-comic series of events that he narrates as Pangloss. Candide's doubt and despair never quite hit home, perhaps the combination of an authorial narrator and self-conscious theatricality leave too much space to doubt his point of view. Nevertheless, this version works well as theatre, and in particular as a way of making sense of the music, which is surely the reason everyone wants to do Candide, and of the often superb lyrics. And John Caird's production uses a first-rate ensemble of actors entertainingly. The set is completely black, except for a circle marked in degrees round the stage, and an identical one that hangs over it, presumably to represent the best of all possible worlds, but also the physical, real world. Props are, or are taken out of, a set of nine trunks that fit inside each other like Russian dolls, and are put back at the end. The atmosphere comes from lighting and smoke, and from the costumes and movement of the actors. There is, for example, a maniac dance in red light for the auto da fe and a dignified chaconne of white-dressed actors in Eldorado. The actors are definitely not singers, and both they and the energetic small orchestra are amplified. But they can all get over the songs, and the thought-through characterization generally makes up for the blunted musical values. Alex Kelly in fact very nearly manages Glitter and be gay, though she conveniently becomes completely demented at the end and doesn't even try to do the final high notes in tune as she wraps herself in a carpet and shuts herself in a trunk. She gets the Marilyn-Monroe cute animal cunning of Cunegonde pretty well, but also makes her close to the edge like Monroe. Beverly Klein is, I think, the only music-theatre specialist in the cast and pretty much runs away with the performance. The Old Woman seems to be Bernstein's alter ego ("My father came from Rovno Governya", tidied up to "mother" in this version). She gets the best songs and the best speech, the story of how she lost her buttock and survived. (Klein doesn't have an operatic voice, but I could see her as Azucena. She did a mean Mrs Lovett for Opera North.) Denis Quilley is a grand, old-fashioned actor, and was good and thunderous as the total pessimist Martin. Daniel Evans was cute but insubstantial as Candide. You couldn't see where his final resolve to drop out came from. Simon Russell Beale did a fair job of distinguishing Pangloss and Voltaire, but didn't (in the performance I saw) quite have the bitter edge or force for Voltaire. But he seemed a bit shaky generally, and was perhaps just having a rough afternoon. He certainly has the potential for Enlightenment irony, and a good eighteenth-century style. Apart from Kelly and Klein, it is the ensemble performers, separately and collectively, who really deliver the impact of this production. There are some fine characterizations in small roles, for example a grand moustachioed Governor from David Burt and a splendidly smug Vanderdendur ("I'm so bad") from Alexander Hanson. The sheep nearly upstaged everybody. And the fast and lucid staging is totally engaging, fitting perfectly with the music. I'm not sure if Candide can really be rescued. This production has generally been reviewed much more enthusiatically by music critics, who like to see the music staged in context so much that they don't seem to mind the nothing-much singing, than by theatre critics, for whom it's all over the place. It also occurred to me that when Robertson Davies said he wanted Berstein for his own opera, he might have been thinking of Candide. Davies' Golden ass libretto is also the story of a naive, privileged young man who experiences horrible suffering and finally opts out of ambition, and a few of the numbers could be related (the bandits' chorus and Vanderdendur's celebration of his greed, for example). Maybe it's no surprise that Davies came up with something of a donkey's breakfast of a libretto when his model comes close to lacking one completely. Regards, Helen H.E. Elsom he@helsom.demon.co.uk http://www.helsom.demon.co.uk/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main OPERA-L page ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Powered by LISTSERV(R)] Back to the [CataList - online list search] LISTSERV home page at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU.