 |
||
 D |
||
| Embassy | Newsletter | U.S. Citizen Services | Visas | U.S. Policy | Business Opportunities | Meet the USA | Fulbright | Vize  |
 |
||||||||||
| You Are In: Home > Embassy > Public Diplomacy > Cultural Section | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Events at the Cultural SectionBerstein's Candide to open Cluj Opera Season October 3The American Cultural Center is proud to continue its sponsorship of performances of the Leonard Berstein's Candide by the National Opera of Cluj-Napoca, which was first performed in Cluj on May 27, 2007.
Candidate de Leonard BersteinMuzica de Leonard Bernstein Orchestratia de Leonard Bernstein si Hershy Kay cu orchestratie aditionala de John Mauceri.
Candide – Overview from the Official Leonard Bernstein Web Site
If there were a special prize for "most labored-over show in theater history," the honor would most certainly go to Candide. Life has imitated art: the show's forty-four-year saga resembles Voltaire's picaresque narrative itself, as numerous brilliant minds have endeavored gallantly to create the "Best of all Possible" shows. In 1953, the renowned playwright Lillian Hellman proposed to Leonard Bernstein that they adapt Voltaire's Candide for the musical theater. Voltaire's novella of 1758 satirized the fashionable philosophies of his day and, especially, the Catholic church whose Inquisition routinely tortured and killed "heretics" in a ghastly event known as an "Auto da Fé" ("act of faith"). Hellman observed a sinister parallel between the Inquisition's church-sponsored purges and the "Washington Witch Trials" being waged by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Fueled by rage and indignation, she began her adaptation of Voltaire's book. John LaTouche was engaged as initial lyricist, while Bernstein made numerous musical sketches. Before long, LaTouche was replaced by poet Richard Wilbur. Hellman, Bernstein and Wilbur worked periodically over the next two years but labored in earnest through 1956. By October, Candide was ready for performances in Boston. At some point during those Boston performances, Dorothy Parker contributed lyrics to "The Venice Gavotte," while Bernstein and Hellman had also added lyrics of their own to other numbers. The lyrics credits were already beginning to mount up.
The production, directed by Tyrone Guthrie, with sets by Oliver Smith and costumes by Irene Sharaff, opened at the Martin Beck Theater in New York on December 1, 1956, to mixed reviews. Hellman's satire was thought cerebral and heavy-handed; the sophistication of the music (much of it in a flashy operetta style) did not appeal to audiences. The production closed on February 2, 1957. Fortunately, the original cast album was recorded by Columbia Records. The music continued to thrive; the recording sold well and Bernstein's score gained a sort of cult status. In 1958, a full-scale production in London, England, was prepared, with a revised book credited to Lillian Hellman assisted by Michael Stewart, and one new musical number ("We Are Women," a duet for Cunegonde and the Old Lady, with lyrics by Leonard Bernstein). Candide opened at the Saville Theater in London on April 30, 1959. In the United States, there was no production which could be called major until 1966, when Gordon Davidson directed Candide for the Theater Group at the University of California at Los Angeles, with Carroll O'Connor in the role of Pangloss. In 1971 the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association mounted a production which attempted a complete revision of Hellman's book, as well as a substantial shuffling of musical numbers. This version was performed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. It is probably at this time that Mr. Bernstein wrote the song "Words, Words, Words," which includes a bitter reprise of "The Best of All Possible Worlds." Though this production was not successful, it seems to have stirred up interest in Candide. In 1973, Harold Prince and Hugh Wheeler devised a new small-scale version which won the support of Lillian Hellman, who at this time withdrew her original adaptation of Voltaire. Thus, the 1956 version of Candide is no longer available for performance. This new version opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Chelsea Theater in December, 1973. Harold Prince directed a free-wheeling single-act production, which included some new lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a thirteen-instrument orchestration by Hershy Kay. When this production moved to the Broadway Theater in Manhattan, the theater itself was rebuilt from the inside out: walkways and platforms were constructed around the auditorium, and the audience sat on wooden benches, right in the middle of the action. The audience was even invited to eat peanuts during the show, adding to the circus-like atmosphere. The young and lively cast, and spirited musical direction by John Mauceri, helped make this production Candide's first critical and popular success. (Known as the "Chelsea" version, this is the earliest version of Candide available for performance.) In October, 1982, New York City Opera (Beverly Sills, general manager) presented Candide in its first version for an opera house. As a full length two-act production, much music that had been cut in 1973 was reinstated, under Mr. Bernstein's supervision, by John Mauceri. New scenes were written by Hugh Wheeler, adapted from Voltaire. Once again Harold Prince directed. As music director of the Scottish Opera in Glasgow, John Mauceri took the opportunity to examine Candide one more time in 1988, with a production that included even more music, including a new "Entr'acte" and a recurring chorale, "Universal Good," created by Mr. Bernstein from a long-discarded aria. Jonathan Miller and John Wells directed and further adapted Hugh Wheeler's script. After Mr. Bernstein had attended the final rehearsals and the opening in Glasgow, as well as a production later in the season devised by Jonathan Miller for the Old Vic in London, he decided the time had come for the composer himself to re-examine Candide. Taking the Scottish Opera version as a base, he restored, among other things, two dozen bars in the "Auto-da-Fé," shuffled the order in the second act, and touched up the orchestration throughout. For example, he altered the endings of several numbers, including "Glitter and Be Gay," where he placed chords on off-beats in the manner of Tchaikovsky, whose Fourth Symphony he had just conducted. This revised and renewed version of Candide was presented by the London Symphony Orchestra in concert at the Barbican Centre, London, England, in December, 1989, and was recorded by Deutsche Grammophon and videotaped by Video Music Productions. Leonard Bernstein and John Wells created a narration, performed at the time by Adolph Green, that moved the action swiftly from one musical number to the next. Harold Prince continues to champion Candide: in 1994 he directed the New York City Opera version (1982) at the Chicago Lyric Opera, and this spring Mr. Prince directs Candide for Livent, on Broadway. It has been more than twenty years since Candide has had a Broadway production. This will also be the 1982 New York City Opera version, with yet more lyrics supplemented by Stephen Sondheim. In 1994, the engraving of the Scottish Opera version became available from Boosey & Hawkes, in a piano/vocal as well as in a full score (with engraved orchestral parts). While this publication encompasses the complete score, it by no means reflects a final, frozen show. Like its hero, Candide is perhaps destined never to find its perfect form and function; in the final analysis, however, that may prove philosophically appropriate. Leonard Bernstein
• The Official Leonard Bernstein Web Site
Leonard Bernstein’s Biography Also known as: Louis Bernstein Occupation: Composer, conductor, pianist TABLE OF CONTENTS AWARDS BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY Born on August 25, 1918, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, Bernstein is the eldest of three children born to Samuel and Jennie Resnick Bernstein, Russian-Jewish immigrants. Though he was named Louis by his parents, at age sixteen Bernstein legally changed his name to Leonard to distinguish himself from other Louis Bernsteins in the family. Bernstein attended Boston's highly competitive Latin School and, despite his father's wish that he work for the family cosmetic business, studied piano, beginning at the rather late age of ten, with Helen Coates and later Heinrich Gebhard. In 1935 Bernstein enrolled at Harvard University, where he studied music with Edward Ballantine, Edward Brulingame Hill, A. Tillman Merritt, and Walter Piston, as well as philosophy, aesthetics, literature, and philology. After earning a B.A. in 1939, Bernstein studied with a number of renowned musicians at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia: Isabella Bengerova, Renee Longy, Randall Thompson, and Fritz Reiner. During the summers of 1940 and 1941 Bernstein studied conducting with the celebrated conductor Sergei Koussevitzky at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood. Koussevitzky recognized Bernstein's talent and in 1942 appointed him his assistant. At this time Bernstein worked for a music publisher, arranging popular songs, transcribing band pieces, and notating jazz improvizations, which were published under the pseudonym Lenny Amber. He ocassionally conducted Boston ensembles and became the assistant conductor under Arthur Rodzinski of the New York Philharmonic. On November 14, 1943, when Bruno Walter, who was scheduled to conduct the orchestra's nationally broadcast concert, suddenly became ill, Bernstein substituted for him with such success that his career was launched. From 1944 to 1950 Bernstein served as guest conductor to seven major orchestras and replaced Leopold Stokowski as music director of the New York City Symphony Orchestra, a position Bernstein held from 1945 to 1948. During his tenure with the orchestra, Bernstein conducted primarily twentieth-century works by European and American composers and proved to be an effective proponent of American music, which was largely ignored until his intervention. Bernstein's compositions of this period include his Symphony No. 1, "Jeremiah," which premiered in 1944 under his own direction and the ballet Fancy Free, which later became the basis for the critically acclaimed Broadway musical "On the Town." Bernstein was also active as a pianist, and in 1949 performed the solo part in his own Symphony No. 2, "The Age of Anxiety." In 1951 Bernstein married his longtime friend, Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn. That same year Koussevitzy died, and Bernstein replaced him as director of the orchestra and conducting departments at the Berkshire Music Center. He was also appointed professor of music at Brandeis University, a position he held until 1955. While at Brandeis and in the late 1950s Bernstein continued to compose works for the stage, including the one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti, the Broadway musical "Wonderful Town," the comic operetta Candide, and the monumentally sucessful Broadway musical "West Side Story." He also composed the film score for On the Waterfront, starring Marlon Brando. In the 1950s and 1960s, Bernstein achieved international stature as a conductor. He was the first American to conduct at the famous opera venue Teatro alla Scala, in Milan, Italy, when in 1953 he directed the celebrated soprano Maria Callas in Cherubini's Medea. After a year as co-director under Dimitri Mitropoulos, in 1958 Bernstein acceded to the directorship of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Bernstein adapted a thematic approach to organizing concert programs and premiered works by American composers. With the orchestra, he produced many recordings and toured widely, including the Near East, Japan, Alaska, and Canada. The orchestra attracted record crowds. Bernstein's Symphony No. 3, "Kaddish," premiered in 1963, and the following year Bernstein took a sabbatical leave to experiment with composing using twelve-tone serial techniques. He did not find this popular technique to his liking and the product of this period, the Chichester Pslams, is a re-affirmation of his belief in tonality. At this time Bernstein also considered writing another musical, but was unable to settle on an appropriate project. To devote more time to composing, in 1969 Bernstein resigned as the permanent conductor, though he was given the permanent title "laureate conductor" and thus allowed to conduct ocassionally. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bernstein often guest-conducted the Vienna Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, with which he has made recordings and television appearances. His Mass, a work commissioned by the John F. Kennedy family for the opening of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, was premiered in 1971, and his ballet based on a classic Jewish legend, The Dybbuk, was first performed in 1974 with choreography by Jerome Robbins, who had choreographed West Side Story. After many months of work on a musical about life in the White House, "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," which was lambasted by critics, Bernstein gave up composing musicals. In 1977 tragedy struck when his wife Felicia died from cancer. In 1980 Bernstein began the challenging project of concert performances, and television and record recordings of Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde. After a busy concert season in 1982, Bernstein focused his attention on the opera A Quiet Place (Tahiti II), which premiered in 1983. After visiting Europe again in late 1983 for concerts and recordings, Bernstein opened a concert tour with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted in a series of guest appearances. He then went to Milan, where a revised version of A Quiet Place became the first American opera to be performed at Teatro alla Scala. Bernstein continued to revise this work for some time afterward, and for the fiftieth anniversary of the Israel Philharmonic he composed Jubilee Games. Approaching music intellectually, but with passion, Bernstein believes that as a conductor, he must intimately understand the intent of the composer and the culture in which he or she lived in order to "recompose" the work on stage. Sometimes his interpretations have been considered self-indulgent, and commentators have long criticized what they consider to be overly exuberant conducting gestures, but by and large he is acclaimed wherever he appears. Bernstein has become especially well known for his interpretations of the works of Mahler and Wagner, which include recordings of the complete cycle of Mahler symphonies. Since he first took to the podium, Bernstein has made over four hundred recordings, for which he has received many Grammy nominations and awards. Bernstein has also been the recipient of numerous awards for his work as a composer and educator. In the 1970s and 1980s music festivals were held in his honor, and the arrival of his seventieth birthday was feted with numerous performances of his works. Bernstein calls himself both a compulsive composer and educator. In 1954 he produced a series of television lectures about music that were published a year later as The Joy of Music. Subsequent television shows were regularly shown on network television, among them fifty-two talks for young listeners (published as Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts for Reading and Listening ) and a series of Harvard lectures (published as The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard ). Bernstein has published a number of other informative books and regularly conducts workshops at Tangelwood for promising conducting students. Though Bernstein refuses to be associated with any single orchestra in his later years, he has spent more time conducting than composing--yet composing is never far from his mind. His 1988 composition, Arias and Barcarolles, is only one of several songs cycles he plans to compose, which he has hinted may evolve into an opera. At a press conference a week before his seventieth birthday, Bernstein expressed his thankfulness for the opportunities he has enjoyed throughout his career and his desire for more years during which to use the talents with which he has been so abundantly blessed. CAREER Books Gottlieb, Jack, Leonard Bernstein: A Complete Catalogue of His Works, Amberson Enterprises, 1978. Periodicals Berkshire Eagle, August 18, 1988; August 21, 1988. PERSONAL INFORMATION SOURCE CITATION UPDATES May 5, 2005: Score, a one-man show about Bernstein, opened at the New York Theater Workshop. The play was adapted from Bernstein's writings by Jocelyn Clarke and starred Tom Nelis. Source: New York Times, www.nytimes.com, May 5, 2005. Original compositions Candide, Columbia. Compositions Pslam 149 (for voice and piano), 1935. Candide - Articles by Bernstein from the Official Leonard Bernstein Web Site Candide was written as a kind of personal love letter to European music. It’s an American’s Valentine to Europe...And it is a pastiche, it’s eclectic, that’s the whole point of it. That opening number that we just saw...is a kind of salute to everything I love in Gilbert & Sullivan, in Offenbach, in Bellini, even. The formality of which we take advantage in introducing the number, the absolute cue-ishness of it. Dr. Pangloss says, ‘This is the best of all lands and the best of all possible worlds.’ Cue, music. That’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be in Gilbert, and that’s the way we did it as a kind of bow of veneration to Gilbert and to Sullivan, and to all the others. Of course it’s a European eclectic work. [Voltaire’s] masterpiece was a tough, skinny novella called Candide, which inspired the playwright Lillian Hellman and me to have a bash at it musically. The challenge to us was to dramatize and musicalize the stinging satire of Candide, without turning it into burlesque. That’s why this so-called Broadway Show was subtitled an operetta, in which we could play with time, place and style. (Well, we were 35 years younger then.) Cadide – Review from the Official Leonard Bernstein Web Site The New York Times, 12/21/73 Harold Prince's 1973 production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Chelsea Theater was heralded as a triumph, as exemplified by Clive Barnes review in The New York Times from December 21, 1973: "There are musicals that are smash hits, musicals that are successes, musicals that are all manner of failure right down to abject and beyond, and musical that are legends. Leonard Bernstein's Candide was a legend. Now the Chelsea Theater Center of Brooklyn--it lives most vigorously in a handsome attic at the Brooklyn Academy of Music--has made the legend a reality. "It was no secret that Mr. Bernstein's comic operetta Candide was not only the most brilliant work Mr. Bernstein has ever composed, but also that in its original staging it had been an unhappy, unlucky failure. It was the kind of musical where you cherished the record and conveniently forgot the scenic circumstances. It was the classic did-not-work-on-the-stage musical. "This is now a new musical, a fun musical, and, so far at least, the best musical of the Broadway season. (It happens to be in Brooklyn, but that is all the same territory to someone with a subway token.) "Everyone who loves the American musical knew about Candide, and everyone sympathized with its comparative failure both on Broadway and in London's West End. In its original version, it had everything going for it except success. "Harold Prince, in deciding to stage Candide for the Chelsea, took one brave and very intelligent decision. He decided that the old book, by Lillian Hellman, simply did not work. He was very right. He brought in Hugh Wheeler to provide a new book, still tenuously based on Voltaire, and while most sensibly keeping most of the original lyrics by the poet Richard Wilbur, also enlisted the occasional and dazzling assistance of Stephen Sondheim. "Then Mr. Prince decided--and this was the real creative leap--that this was not a conventional musical fit for the occasionally fallen arches of a proscenium. He knew the music, understood the show's rapid changes of circumstance and scene, and devised a way to express the work's particular style. "The work is episodic. Basically that is why it originally failed. Mr. Prince has staged it episodically and that is why it is now one of the few luminous delights of the New York theater. It is simply a lovely, heartwarming piece. ". . . I loved this new Candide. I always knew that the Bernstein music was a great score [that] somehow had been lost on the way to the theater. Here it has at last been found. Mr. Bernstein, Mr. Wheeler, Mr. Prince and, of course, Mr. Voltaire, have given us a new and effervescent musical." Except for one-time personal use, no part of any New York Times material may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, electronic process, or in the form of phonographic recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise copied for public or private use without written permission of the New York Times Permissions Department. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
This site is produced and maintained by the Public Diplomacy Office of the United States Embassy in Romania. Links to other internet sites should not be construed as an endorsement of the views contained therein. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Public Diplomacy
|
Home | Embassy | U.S. Citizens | Visa | Policy & Issues | Meet the USA USAID | Fulbright | Contact Us | Privacy | Comments / Suggestions |
 |