Haines His Way

I am very excited about CANDIDE on PBS Wednesday evening.  I am assuming this is a full production.  I think it has been mentioned here at HHW before.  Any more details?  

Broadway and operetta unite in the New York Philharmonic's semistaged performance of the satirical, effervescent musical "Candide" by Leonard Bernstein, the conductor and composer who was so intimately associated with the orchestra. Equally drawn from the classical and musical theater worlds, the cast includes Broadway's "Wicked" Kristin Chenoweth as Cunegonde, Patti LuPone in a star turn as The Old Lady, Paul Groves as Candide, and Sir Thomas Allen as Dr. Pangloss/Narrator. Staged by Broadway actor-director Lonny Price, whose recent work includes the San Francisco Symphony's Emmy Award-winning, semistaged production of Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" in 2000, "Candide" features Bernstein protégé Marin Alsop conducting the New York Philharmonic, with the participation of the Westminster Symphonic Choir.

When "Candide" first opened on Broadway in 1956, expectations were very high. Voltaire's comic novella of 1759 for the musical stage was adapted by Lillian Hellman, one of America's pre-eminent playwrights, and famed composer Leonard Bernstein wrote the music. He had already composed the scores for such musical theater hits as "On the Town" and "Wonderful Town" and, within a year, would be represented on Broadway again with "West Side Story." The lyricists for "Candide" included the young and promising John Latouche, the renowned wit Dorothy Parker, and the celebrated American poet Richard Wilbur. The production was staged by esteemed drama and opera director Tyrone Guthrie and the cast featured two of the most beautiful voices heard on Broadway in the 1950s: Barbara Cook and Robert Rounseville. Rarely had a show opened on Broadway with a more distinguished pedigree.

Perhaps such impressive credits could only lead to disappointment, for audiences and critics were generally let down.
…
It barely managed to run three months on Broadway, closing after 73 performances. However, the cast recording immediately became a classic, while Bernstein's overture became one of the most frequently performed and beloved of all orchestral pieces.
…
The musical was saved from sinking into relative obscurity in 1973 when director Harold Prince and librettist Hugh Wheeler refashioned the piece into a raucous, silly, and playful farce that was closer to Voltaire's comic book original. Much of the score was deleted, Stephen Sondheim wrote some additional lyrics to existing Bernstein music, and a young and very unoperatic cast performed it in a circuslike setting at the Chelsea Theatre Center in the Brooklyn Academy of Music and later on Broadway. This time "Candide" was a hit, running 740 performances (though it still lost money due to the limited seating in the environmental rearrangement of the large Broadway Theatre).
…
As "Candide" was revived across the country and in Europe, much of the Bernstein score was restored, and today the "comic operetta" (as it can most accurately be described) is a combination of the original 1956 version and the 1973 revised revival. The score now takes precedence, but it is held together by Wheeler's book. As the philosophical Dr. Pangloss might say, today's "Candide" is "the best of all possible Candides." Ironically, there is no definitive "Candide." Every production picks and chooses from the wide selection of songs and instrumental pieces that have been used over the years. To perform all the music available would take several hours. Before his death in 1990, Bernstein himself conducted a complete recording of all the "Candide" musical variations; it is a dazzling, remarkable collection, but not something that can be put on the stage effectively.
….
The staged concert version with the New York Philharmonic broadcast on GREAT PERFORMANCES is no exception. Director and adaptor Lonny Price retains much of the Wheeler book, adding his own narration and contemporary jokes to the 1973 script. But unlike in that version, several songs from the 1956 production are restored. The character of The Old Lady only had one song in the 1973 revival: the delicious Latin number "I Am Easily Assimilated." However, in this concert version, The Old Lady (played with panache by Patti LuPone) is featured in five songs, including the rarely heard duet "We Are Women," which was cut from the original production. Another unusual number, also cut in 1956, is "Dear Boy," perhaps the most cynical song in the score. It is performed by Sir Thomas Allen as Dr. Pangloss and, while it tends to slow down the action, it is a fascinating sample of the tone that pervaded much of Hellman's original script.

Paul Groves and Kristen Chenoweth, as Candide and Cunegonde, sing most of the score's most famous pieces, from "Oh, Happy We" to "Make Our Garden Grow," which are heard in all productions of the operetta. But director Price sees to it that these numbers do not become too reverent or set pieces that are removed from the rest of the show. The duets and Cunegonde's explosive aria "Glitter and Be Gay" are played primarily as comic songs, which they are, rather than operatic showcases. Chenoweth brings down the house with her solo, but it is as much for her astute comic skills as for her considerable vocal pyrotechnics.

In many ways this staged concert version is "the best of all possible worlds" because it wisely mixes Broadway performers with opera talents. In this way both the musical genius and the comic ingenuity of the piece are justly served. Yet such a grand performance would not be possible without Prince and Wheeler's rethinking and revitalizing "Candide" in 1973. One of American theater's most beloved flops was given new life and a prodigious future on stages around the world was secured. It remains the greatest theatrical rescue in Broadway history.

I cannot tell you of the sucking that is going on in my bedroom.  

Here's my contribution to the L'il Abner Topic of the Day.  How about the TV sit-com version?:

It was widely assumed the former governor would next bide his time for a semcond White House run in 2008.

Harry Connick, Jr. to Star in Fall 2005 B'way Pajama Game Revival

Harry Connick, Jr. is set to play Sid Sorokin in a revival of the musical The Pajama Game on the Great White Way. The production, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, is aiming for a Broadway berth in November 2005, according to The New York Times.
…
As previously reported, this revival of The Pajama Game is expected to feature two news songs by Adler and a revised book by Peter Ackerman (the actor-turned-writer behind the play Things You Shouldn't Say Past Midnight and the film Ice Age).

Men and machines are gone and hopefully whatever they did will work.  I'm going to be veddy British now by having an English Muffin.

D'ya think if I knock her off I could comfort said hubby?