Candide

July 22, 2010

Candide

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010 Canadian director Robert Carlsen brings to Tokyo a new production of the comic operetta by American composer Leonard Bernstein. Basing his work on Voltaire’s famed 18th-century satire, Bernstein used Candide’s depiction of the Spanish Inquisition to slyly send up the McCarthyism that plagued the US in the ’50s. […]

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Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010

© Catherine Ashmore

Canadian director Robert Carlsen brings to Tokyo a new production of the comic operetta by American composer Leonard Bernstein. Basing his work on Voltaire’s famed 18th-century satire, Bernstein used Candide’s depiction of the Spanish Inquisition to slyly send up the McCarthyism that plagued the US in the ’50s. In Carlen’s hands the analogy is overt, with new staging to evoke mid-century America. The production, which debuted in Paris in 2006 to rave reviews, comes to Tokyo with a new cast featuring Jeremy Finch as Candide and Marnie Breckenridge as his paramour Cunegonde.

Candide
New staging of the Bernstein operetta by the English National Opera with Robert Carsen. Aug 6, 6:30pm; Aug 7, 2pm; Aug 8, 1pm, ¥5,000-¥17,000. Bunkamura Orchard Hall, Shibuya. Tel: Ticket Space 03-3234-9999.