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The Grand "Piece" Called Candide

Elizabeth Aaron

Leonard Bernstein's Candide has almost as tortuous a journey as its title character. From its awkward 1956 debut in New York, the show was modified, sliced, diced and stripped in the 1960s and 70s. Bernstein himself poured years of effort into matching a troubled libretto to his epic music, turning out another version in 1989. Different stagings formed a kind of theatrical a la carte, employing unusual sets, constuming and approaches.

So Cal MacLean has his work cut out for him.

MacLean, the artistic director of the University of Tennessee's Clarence Brown Theatre, says planning for a local production of Candide began several years ago. To stage what he calls "the piece" (neither "musical" nor "operetta" realy capture the work, MacLean says), CBT teamed up with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra to find an adaptation of Candide that satisfied space, budget, time, music and singers.

"I was very interested in the libretto of a version that was recently done in London, but that was scored for a...small band. It was kind of a stripped-down version, not suitable for an orchestra," MacLean told WUOT's Brandon Hollingsworth. "So we approached the rights organization about taking the libretto from the concert version, and combining that with the Scottish Opera version."

MacLean says he hopes the audience will find meaning in the combination of Voltaire's cynicism and Bernstein's humanity.

"The expectation is that our audience will recognize some of the same problems that Cunegonde and Candide face as they are trying to grow up - as they are trying to go from young adults to adulthood - in a contemporary context," MacLean says.

The Clarence Brown Theatre's production of Leonard Bernstein's Candide opened August 31, and runs through September 16.