Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” is what’s known as a problem opera, or operetta, or musical; call it what you will. It seems that no one has ever quite managed to make it work, and so new hands are brought in and new versions made and fingers crossed every time it is produced again.
Leave it to good ol’ Long Beach Opera to figure it out. The little opera company that could presented its own version of “Candide” over the last two weekends at the Center Theater. It provided plenty of chuckles (well, “Candide” usually does), but, more to the point, was brisk and stylish and coherent.
For those keeping score, Long Beach’s version was based on an adaptation made by John Caird and first performed in 1999 at the National Theatre in London. David Schweizer, the stage director here, then made what he called “liberal cuts” to the script and reduced the cast.
Further, he reimagined “Candide” as a rehearsal of “Candide,” with the narrator/host of the show, Voltaire himself, becoming a stage director, script in hand, nervously taking his players through an early run-through of the piece.
Creative decisions were being made on the fly (or it was pretended that they were), including the selection of actors for particular roles, the positioning of props, the choosing of costumes. Stage directions were read aloud. The stagehands stood around watching and got into the spirit of the thing, supplying homemade projections to represent the global locales and homemade puppets to flesh out the action. (The stagehands were played by the wonderful Rogue Artists Ensemble.)
I suppose it could have been a disaster, but it wasn’t. Long Beach Opera is well known for its esprit in pulling off such conceptions (see “Powder Her Face,” “Semele,” among others) and Schweizer, it appeared, made the right cuts and kept the whole thing moving along in a kind of controlled mayhem. The loose joints of most versions of “Candide” were both minimized and turned into a virtue.
Of course the musical numbers, almost all parodies, have always been among Bernstein’s most brilliant. Fortunately, the company enlisted a cast, including several regulars, that pulled them off con gusto. Soprano Jamie Chamberlin, as Cunegonde, negotiated the most famous aria in the score, “Glitter and Be Gay,” with clarion tone and pointed agility, all the while keeping a straight face during one of the funniest stagings (involving ridiculous obscenities) of a song we’ve ever seen.
Tenor Todd Strange introduced a properly innocent and sturdily musical Candide who plumbed genuine depths of feeling. Suzan Hanson hit it out of the park in multiple roles, including as the Old Woman (with one buttock) in “I Am So Easily Assimilated.” Zeffin Quinn Hollis, also in multiple duties, was a crisp and hammy delight whenever he stepped forward.
Robin Buck brought a real sparkle, rhythmic verve and a sense of slight befuddlement to the role of the ersatz stage director (Voltaire/Pangloss), consulting script and jumping in where necessary. Roberto Perlas Gomez, Danielle Marcel Bond and Arnold Livingston Geis (an irresistibly dopey hippie king) also charmed and effervesced.
Conductor Kristof Van Grysperre fluently led a chamber version of the score for 14 instrumentalists, seated behind the rehearsal. The clarity and lightness of this orchestration were remarkable, and the musicians played it nimbly.
Voices and instruments were subtly, sensitively amplified – no complaints. If one didn’t quite catch all the words, well that’s a problem not just here.
This one’s a keeper. Long Beach Opera should bring it back in 2018, for the Bernstein centenary.
Contact the writer: 714-796-6811 or tmangan@ocregister.com
