![\"Candide2--071R\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Candide2-071R.JPG\")
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Robin Buck (Voltaire\/Dr. Pangloss), Arnold Livingston Geis (Baron) and Suzan Hanson (Baroness). Photos courtesy of the Long Beach Opera.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n It is no new news that Candide<\/em> is as much a conundrum and a vampire as it is a playful and satirical romp. The original novella by Voltaire was written in 1759 and has since been translated into dozens of languages, while the American Opera\/Operetta\/Musical(?!) with a score by the great Leonard Bernstein has itself undergone many adaptations, re-writes and variations.<\/p>\n In fact, I can think of no other work written for the stage that has seen as many drastically different re-boots as Candide<\/em> has. While each new interpretation sheds new light on the material, Candide<\/em> remains an enigma: A malleable and adaptable satire with a great score that, despite its pleasures, seems nearly impossible to make into great theater.<\/p>\n The plot of Candide<\/em> is less important than the tone and outlook its world view speaks to, but here’s a quick recap for clarity’s sake: Todd Strange (Candide), Danielle Marcelle Bond (Paquette), Jamie Chamberlin (Cunegonde), Robin Buck (Dr. Pangloss) and Roberto Perls Gomez (Maximilian).<\/em><\/p>\n While the Long Beach Opera’s short-lived revival succeeded in creating a more intimate and playfully contemporary production than any I have seen, it still struggled to keep itself afloat under the weight of both its inherent and invented shortcomings.<\/p>\n The inherent shortcomings lay almost entirely in the libretto, which has notoriously been written, re-written and re-written. Voltaire’s novella itself is episodic by nature, but no adaptation has presented characters with enough dimension for us to really relate to, or enough time during scenes to catch a breath before being swept off to the next far away locale. Those are duties left to the score, and the music of Candide<\/em> delivers on those terms and then some. With this in mind, the difficulty in staging the material is how to give it an off-the-cuff, fizzy and spontaneous feel while leading all components towards a focused whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n David Schweizer, who directed this production of Candide<\/em>, couldn’t decide which of his two concepts to stick to. Instead, his staging arbitrarily switched between a contrived and over-wrought \u201copen rehearsal\u201d to a more realized and successful story-theater rendering of the material. While the \u201cin rehearsal\u201d concept adds some stilted playfulness to the proceedings, it is impossible to buy these decisions as being made and manifested in the moment of our watching them. The music is far too complex and the choices and movements too calculated. Yet, when he let go of that conceit and allowed the cast to fully fill their roles, the production often sparkled and shined like one of Cunegonde’s many jewels.<\/p>\n It also must be mentioned that the use of puppets in the production, provided and performed by members of the Rogue Artists Ensemble (an LA-based puppet and theater company) and under the direction of Sean T. Cawelti, split a similar line between contrived and charming, ultimately working better when adding to the atmosphere than being the center of attention.<\/p>\n The ensemble.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Each member of the cast sang their roles exquisitely and handled Bernstein’s challenging score as if it were as effortless to sing as a folk song.<\/p>\n What surprised me most about the performances, however, were not how well the cast sang, which is to be expected in an opera, but how universally bold and grounded the cast’s acting chops were. Jamie Chamberlin’s performance and the rainbow-phallic staging of \u201cGlitter and Be Gay\u201d was sprinkled with just enough irony and sadness to make the song feel fresh and contemporary. Likewise, the multiple roles played by Arnold Livingston Gels and Zeffin Quinn Hollis were delivered with the conviction of top-notch character actors and sung with the confidence and grace of the opera professionals they clearly are.<\/p>\n The orchestra, under the conducting of Kristof Van Grysperre sounded larger than they actually were and as tight as anyone could have wished. Clearly spirited away by a great passion for Bernstein’s material, they were a pleasure to listen to and watch.<\/p>\n I do wish, however, that the singers had gone un-miked, so that the multiple sound issues that occurred throughout the evening could have been avoided and the orchestra and voices could have seamlessly merged without distraction.\u00a0In the future, I urge the Long Beach Opera to favor un-miked voices in their more intimately staged productions.<\/p>\n Robin Buck (Dr. Pangloss), Zeffin Quinn Hollis (Martin), Todd Strange (Candide), Suzan Hanson (The Old Woman) and Roberto Perls Gomez (Maximilian).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Voltaire once famously wrote, \u201cHistory is the lie most commonly agreed upon,\u201d and while no one seems to be able to agree on how Candide<\/em> should be staged, I think that is perhaps one of its greatest assets. Voltaire clearly believed that all truth lay somewhere between the two extremes of any subject, and whether some may have found this staging too low brow or alternative, I always appreciate when the scales are tipped away from what is preconceived. To that credit, LBO should be commended.<\/p>\n We may never find ourselves in \u201cthe best of all possible worlds,\u201d but it is each voice and idea that feeds the nearly impossible probability of such things. If that is the case, perhaps Candide<\/em> is that probability’s perpetual poster boy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is no new news that Candide<\/em> is as much a conundrum and a vampire as it is a playful and satirical romp. While each new interpretation sheds new light on the material, Candide<\/em> remains an enigma: A malleable and adaptable satire with a great score that, despite its pleasures, seems nearly impossible to make into great theater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":67442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-2072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","tag-long-beach-opera","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2072"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2072"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Dr. Pangloss, a renowned and respected teacher of unfettered optimism, loses his pupil Candide, (and perhaps his job as well?) when Candide falls for the beautiful daughter (Cunegonde) of the baron and baroness who employ him. Forced suddenly to experience unsheltered life in what his professor swore was \u201cthe best of all possible worlds,\u201d Candide faces one ridiculous hardship after another and comes face to face with social, political and religious hypocrisies. Yet, until Cunegonde is by his side, Candide faces his challenges with hope that one day his professor’s old claims may in time be proven true.<\/p>\n![\"Candide2--098R\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Candide2-098R.JPG\")
<\/p>\n![\"Candide2--288R\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Candide2-288R.JPG\")
<\/p>\n![\"Candide2--632R\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Candide2-632R.JPG\")
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