CANDIDE
Welsh
National Opera at Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff *****
Closest of all his works to his huge heart, Leonard
Bernstein’s Candide has been a victim of the many midwives present at its
gestation. Jealousies, egos, conflicting linguistic styles, all contributed
towards a massive confusion as to whether Bernstein’s more-than-wonderful score
should be considered a musical, an opera, or an operetta. There currently exist
at least seven performing versions of this theatrical presentation of
Voltaire’s novella satirising mid-18th century philosophers such as
Leibniz claiming everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.
Welsh National Opera have raised two fingers to all this
farrago, recreating the piece in the most engaging way possible, with
production values more imaginative than one could have envisioned, musical
standards unsurpassable, and a total impact which hit a packed audience with
delight.
Textual differences matter to us nerds. The gambling scene
was in Constantinople rather than in my score’s Venice, so we lost the witty,
ingratiating Venice Gavotte (unless my ears blinked). The audience will have
been robbed of a treat here, but there was so much else to enthral.
The orchestra was set up on stage behind a gauze, upon which
were projected the most amazing and inventive animations, worlds beyond
anything I have ever encountered, and which miraculously slotted in with three
levels of steps which were the only stage-furniture, apart from a park bench
unobtrusively brought on from time to time. The huge cast emerged from these
visual illusions with total ease and effect.
Karen Kamensek conducted a fizzing account of this eclectic
score, ranging in its allusions from Verdi to Gilbert and Sullivan, and all
around the spectrum (Ravel’s La Valse, Argentinian tango, Broadway ballads, and
so much else), and achieved an impressive rapport between stage and her superb WNO
Orchestra, thanks to the resource of closed-circuit TV, screens discreetly
placed in the auditorium.
In front of all this, a huge chorus delivered with vigour
and characte in James Bonas’ production, emerging to assume individual
characterisations, then returning to add to the general bustle. The brilliance
of the choreography was an added delight.
Among the principals, Ed Lyon was an appealing, slightly
bewildered Candide, Madeleine Shaw a superbly cynical, fix-it Old Lady, and,
above all, Claudia Boyle was a superb Cunegonde, spiritedly rising above all
the indignities inflicted upon her, engagingly disingenuous, and absolutely
magnificent in the coloratura of her spectacular “Glitter and be gay”. The only
problem was Gillian Bevan’s Doctor Pangloss, effectively sung, but in whose
narration we missed the resonance of a male voice.
Candide was an example of all the strengths Welsh National
Opera has bult over many years. Now the box-ticking, inept pygmies of the Arts
Council (of England, no less) are proposing cuts to its funding, threatening
the configuration of the chorus and orchestra. Levelling-up? I don’t think so.
But we all know those philistines who somehow have a job
overseeing the arts feel opera is an elite pastime. How can we ever get through
to them?
*July 12 Alexandra Theatre Birmingham 7.30pm.
Christopher Morley