Candide

ABOUT THE EVENT

The famous American composer, conductor, and an avid promoter of music Leonard Bernstein is also the author of one opera and several musicals, of which the West Side Story, staged in Pilsen for the first time in May 2017, belongs to the best that has ever been created in this genre.

However, in the shadow of this opera unjustly remains Candide, based on Voltaire’s short story, in its first version in 1956 subtitled as a comic operetta and in the reworked version of 1974 as a musical. The first staging in our country was in 1980 in Brno, and in 2006 in the State Opera in Prague.

Candide, a naïve young man grows at his uncle’s, baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh’s chateau in Westfalia, where he is being raised and taught by the philosopher and scholar dr. Panglos, an avid supporter of an optimistic philosophy claiming we live in the best of all the worlds possible and that all what is happening is inevitable. When Candide falls in love with baron’s daughter he is expelled from the chateau and embarks on a long journey around the globe. From Westfalia in Germany he travels across many lands, experiences sea voyage and shipwrecking, gets lost in a South American rainforest… Wherever he sets foot he meets all sorts of evil caused by individuals, the society, and nature, but he eventually realizes that things are completely different and that everyone has their destiny fully in their hands.

The work is ingenuously composed: the philosophical theme is presented parallel with an emotional one. The plot, consisting of small episodes, holds together the theme of travelling, combined with the biography of the main character.

CREATORS

Hudba: Leonard Bernstein
Libreto: Hugh Wheeler podle Voltaira
Texty písní: Richard Wilbur
Další texty: Stephen Sondheim, John La Touche, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Leonard Bernstein
Instrumentace: Leonard Bernstein, Hershy Kay
Hudební dramaturgie a další instrumentace: John Mauceri
Translation: Ivan Vomáčka

Musical arrangement: Jiří Štrunc
Conductors: Jiří Štrunc / Jiří Petrdlík
Directed by: Tomáš Ondřej Pilař

PERSONS AND ACTORS

Voltaire, Pangloss, Martin: Lumír Olšovský
Candide: Michal Bragagnolo / Richard Samek
Maximilián, Kapitán: Jiří Hájek / Jakub Hliněnský
Guvernér, Vanderdendur, Ragotski: Marek Žihla
Cunegonda: Soňa Godarská / Doubravka Součková
a další

Sbor opery DJKT, Orchestr opery DJKT, Balet DJKT