The Faber Pocket Guide to Opera (82 page)

CD: Marie Powers (Flora); Thomas Schippers (cond.).
VAI Audio 1162

Leonard Bernstein

(1918–90)

Candide

Two acts. First performed Boston, 1956.

Libretto by Lillian Hellman, revised by Hugh Wheeler and several other hands

Based on Voltaire’s short novel of the same name, this ambitious operetta pre-dates the same composer’s hit musical
West
Side
Story
by a year.
At least seven different writers – including Stephen Sondheim – had a hand in the many revisions to the chaotic libretto.

Plot

Mid-eighteenth-century Europe.
Candide, an innocent Westphalian youth, is told by his optimistic tutor Pangloss that ‘everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’.
A series of disastrous adventures, which take him all over the world, proves otherwise: his fellow men are rapacious and merciless, and life full of shocks and disappointment. Finally, however, Candide returns home and settles down with Pangloss and his beloved Cunegonde, determined to make his ‘garden grow’.

What to listen for

The score of
Candide
may not be profound, but from its scintillating overture, with its Rossini-style crescendo, it is certainly brilliant.
The obvious vocal highlight is Cunegonde’s ‘Glitter and be gay’, a witty and dazzling take on coloratura showpieces, but there are also several superb parodies of dance styles, ranging from tango to gavotte, as well as trios, quartets and ensembles of a complexity rare in operetta.
Among other numbers, Candide’s and Cunegonde’s daintily pretty ‘O happy we’, Candide’s elegiac lament, the duet ‘We are Women’ and the moving final chorus ‘Make our Garden Grow’ are all outstanding.

In performance

After several substantial revisions, including a 1973 version with a shorter, completely new libretto and some new numbers, Bernstein finally put his imprimatur on the syncretic edition prepared with the help of his pupil John Mauceri and performed and recorded at the Barbican Centre in 1989.
But problems remain, and a major revival by the National Theatre in 1999 continued to add, subtract and reorder.
It seems unlikely that two productions of
Candide
will ever use quite the same material.

Recording

CD: Jerry Hadley (Candide); Leonard Bernstein (cond.).
DG 429 734 2

Carlisle Floyd

(1926– )

Susannah

Two acts. First performed Talahassee, 1955.

Libretto by the composer

Floyd ranks among the most steadily popular of modern American composers.
Susannah
transfers the tale from the biblical apocrypha of Susannah and the Elders to a rural Midwest setting,
circa
1950.
It is important to remember that the opera was written during the era of the McCarthy persecutions – it is contemporary with Arthur Miller’s
The
Crucible,
with which it has obvious similarities – and reflects the composer’s sympathy for the victims of busybodies, time-servers and informers.

Plot

In a puritanical mountain village in Tennessee, Susannah Polk, an innocent orphaned nineteen-year-old brought up by her brother Sam, is suspected of being sexually wanton.
Despite much disapproval, Bat, a local boy, is courting her.
When Susannah is spotted bathing in a creek used for baptisms, the church Elders accuse her of being devilish, and at a revivalist meeting the Reverend Blitch urges her to confess and repent.
She refuses, and is cast out of the community.
Bat is forced to bring false evidence against her.

Blitch follows Susannah to her shack outside the village, where he seduces her, only to discover that she is a virgin.
Stricken with remorse, he tries to defend her without incriminating his own reputation, but nobody believes him.
When Susannah tells Sam what has happened, he kills Blitch.
The villagers assemble to drive Susannah out, but she keeps them at bay with a shotgun.
Driven mad, she slaps Bat across his face.

What to listen for

There is nothing very complex or innovative about Floyd’s score, but it is attractively fluent and communicative.
Catchy Appalachian folk-songs, evangelical hymns and square dances are incorporated, and there are some glowingly lyrical arias for the soprano who takes the role of Susannah – music which has attracted several of today’s leading American prima donnas, notably Renée Fleming.

In performance

A simple work which requires only a straightforward staging.
Originally designed to be performed by university students, it has also been performed in several major opera houses, including the Met, where it has gripped and moved audiences, if not the more exigent critics.

Recording

CD: Cheryl Studer (Susannah); Kent Nagano (cond.).
Virgin 7243 545 03924

Stephen Sondheim

(1930– )

Sweeney
Todd

Two acts. First performed New York, 1979.

Libretto by Hugh Wheeler

Sondheim’s version of the legend of ‘the demon barber of Fleet Street’ draws on a cod-Victorian melodrama by Christopher Bond, written in 1973.
Another Broadway musical which has gravitated towards the opera house and benefits from performers who can sing as well as they can act.

Plot