This is a heavenly performance of Candide. But before you go any further, you should realise that this is a concert performance, not a chunky scale operatic staging of the work. That said, the singing is handsome and the acting, despite this being a concert performance is outstanding. It is driven to milk all the comical elements out of the play. It all works delightfully. It is so brimful of joie de vivre, it leaves you smiling and humming all day. I must disagree with a previous reviewer who said, Bernstein wouldn’t be amused. This is precisely what he would have wanted to carry out.

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Sir Thomas Allen is advantageous as Dr. Pangloss who doubles as the narrator of the concert. Paul Groves and Patti LuPone are both helpful. But the star of this Candide is surely the fair Kristin Chenoweth as Cunegonde, who in addition to having a magnificient whisper shows that she is a natural comedienne and actress. This recording of Candide immediately goes to the top of the list. Now, if only we could have Bernstein’s maintain production of Candide recorded live at the Barbican Theatre in London. That recording under the Deutsche Grammophon notice is yet to appear on DVD.

I should comment on the camerawork which received criticism from a previous reviewer. It is a stamp of the electric quality of this bravura performance that most viewers don’t even glimpse the occasionally almost amateurish shakiness of the camera. The cameraman was shaky at times and faces occasionally went in and out of focus but a tall fragment of what I initially attributed to abominable camerawork was in fact artificially introduced motion artifacts. This is a dilemma with the DVD encoding and not the camera. These cause apparent jumps in the describe. But this is exhibit only in DVD players with gross raze video processors. Switching to a better DVD player or processor solves the pickle.

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The DVD by Image Entertainment is in 1.78:1 widescreen (anamorphic enhancement) . Report quality is very edifying, definite, involving and with rich natural colors. The recount is flawless provided you play it on a agreeable DVD player. It comes with 3 audio tracks, DTS 5.1, Dolby Surround 5.1 and Dolby Stereo. Superior immersive sound. It would have been great if they had included an uncompressed PCM track as well but I protest that’s asking a bit great. All in all, an outstanding concert and one to be forever treasured.

Technical note: As well-known above I noticed a weird predicament with this particular DVD. It seems to play quite flawlessly on distinct systems, yet throw up irritating problems on others. On one set-up I noticed numerous motion artifacts and lots of combing issues. Motion appears jerky and horizontal scan lines appear whenever swiftly movements occur or hasty scene changes buy set. I’m not quite distinct why they should be there but I attibute it to scandalous encoding or base flagging. No other DVD exhibits these errors on this particular system. I beget what one of the previous reviewers complained about could be due to this. The plight goes away when switching to an alternate system with a better deinterlacer / video processor. However that does not absolve Image Entertainment from responsibility for producing a sub-standard DVD which requires high kill equipment to compensate for its deficiencies.

P.S. Bernstein’s Candide can be interpreted in many ways. Some reach it as serious opera, others as light operetta, unruffled others as a Broadway musical or even farce. Liking or disliking a particular production is very subjective. If you adhere to Bernstein’s final vision of this work, enshrined in his by now legendary Barbican performance (Final, revised edition, first premiered 1988 by Scottish Opera and later performed with the LSO at the Barbican in 1989 with high powered opera stars singing all the roles), then you will tend to thought this more as Opera and consequently your attitude to any performance that detracts from that operatic image (like this one) will be very negative. But you must remember that for many years, and for most Americans, Candide was considered a Broadway musical and at most a comical operetta. The two contrasting visions are equally superb and are a testament to Bernstein’s genius and Candide’s station as a proper masterpiece.

Based on the wickedly laughable satire by Voltaire, CANDIDE was originally produced on Broadway in 1956. The Leonard Bernstein collect was greatly admired, as were the lyrics from an unexpected combination of Richard Wilbur, John Latouche, and Dorothy Parker. Sadly, the script by Lillian Hellman and the production as a whole proved hamfisted, to say the least, and in spite of a legendary performance by Barbara Cook the prove closed after a mere seventy three performances.

On-going admiration made the novel cast album a common in theatre circles, and over the years there have been numerous attempts to revive CANDIDE–but each attempt proved problematic at best. Even when Hellman’s script was discarded, the note simply proved impossible to stage… until 2004, when director Lonny Stamp staged the share for a microscopic engagement at Lincoln Center.

Like most post-1956 directors, Effect largely discarded the Hellman script. He also went quite a bit further: he makes no difficulty to “stage” CANDIDE in a conventional style. Placing no less than the Unusual York Philharmonic and Westminister Symphonic Choir in the middle of the stage, using a minimum of props and even fewer costumes, Tag has his actors romp through the orchestra and play directly and pointedly to the audience–and the result is theatre at its most theatrical and most uniquely noteworthy.

The cast is kindly. Paul Groves and Kristin Chenoweth offer memorable vocals in the leading roles of Candide and his lady esteem Cunegonde, and while Chenoweth doesn’t manage to best Barbara Cook’s memorable performance she at least equals it; in her hands the noted “Glitter and be Delighted” proves as comical as it is fair. Sir Thomas Allen provides grand stability in multiple roles, including the misguided Dr. Pangloss. Patti LuPone is somewhat less effective; although she performs both script and win with the worthy vocal skills and ample aplomb for which she is so well-known, she seems faintly miscast as The Frail Lady. Even so, this indeed Patti LuPone in tubby slip, and that compensates for a mountainous deal.

Like most theatre-to-film projects, CANDIDE has the occasional photography dilemma, but over all film director Fritz Zeilinger captures the excitement of this memorable live performance without major gaffes. If you are a fan of the fetch who has never seen the play in performance–well, as Dr. Pangloss might say, this is indeed the best of all possible productions. Greatly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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