With just over 1,400 people loosely filling Tucson Music Hall, Arizona Opera on Saturday night offered the comic side of Leonard Bernstein as part of the Tucson Desert Song Festival "Bernstein At 100."
It was the company its first ever "Candide," Bernstein's operetta/musical theater piece based on Voltaire's 18th century novella of the same name.
Here are a few takeaways:
• Plot twists and resurrections: This is a story of boy — Candide — meets girl — Cunegonde. They fall in love, but tragedy strikes and the girl dies a horrific death along with pretty much the entire town. So boy sets out on an introspective journey to find the good in the world and in himself. Oh, but wait: Turns out girl isn't dead. In what appears to be a random encounter, boy meets girl again in Paris. Surprise! She's alive! And so are many of the townspeople, who turn up along the boy's journey.
Candide (tenor Miles Mykkanen) and Cunegonde (soprano Katrina Galka) pick up where they left off, only she is whisked away and kidnapped along with her caretaker The Old Lady (mezzo Ann McMahon Quintero) and is betrothed to a lecherous governor, who puts off saying I do for literally years, although she is still performing her wifely duties (wink, wink). Meanwhile Candide is desperately searching for Cunegonde and along his journeys encounters some of those supposedly dead townspeople including Candide's classmate Maximillian (baritone Jarrett Porter), who somehow has been promoted to police chief.
There's an underlying moral theme to "Candide" centered on disregarding the philosophies of the Age of Enlightenment, when the world set aside negative conspiracies and false teachings and sought out the positive in people and circumstances. As Pangloss (baritone Curt Olds), the sexual-harrassing teacher and philosopher, puts it: God created the world and God is great so therefore the world is great, or words to that effect.
But it's a fair bet that Bernstein was more focused on the humor than the message.
• Set changes with a keystroke: With all this traveling around the world by land and sea, it would be nearly impossible to stage "Candide" without the nifty multimedia digital projections from Tony-winning designerJerome Sirlin. With a keystroke, we go from trudging on land to being tossed on wild waters at sea. Some of the sets were a little too dark and obscured the cast. But the idea that we were saved time-sucking set changes was a blessings especially considering that "Candide" clocks in at three hours with a half-hour intermission.
• Slapstick humor, and what about those sheep?: Oh that Leonard Bernstein. What a sense of humor he had, from the lovers duet "Oh Happy We" where Candide envisions a simple married life on a small farm with a house full of kids and Cunegonde sees the happy couple draped in pearls in a lavish mansion and attending the biggest social soirees; to the exchange when they encounter a priest and rabbi who have been sharing Cunegonde. Each gets her on their Sabbath and a couple days during the week, she says. Candide duels with the rabbi and stabs him. As he is lying there dying, Candide suggests its their Christian duty to submit to the man of God. "I did, repeatedly!" Cunegonde shoots back.
Other silly antics included Candide and Cunegonde twisting themselves into various positions as they tried to mimic the off-stage scene they are witnessing of Pangloss offering private tutoring (wink, wink) to their flirty classmate Paquette (Stephanie Sanchez). At times, though, the slapstick humor became almost gratuitous including when Candide and a travelmate tried to lighten their load and tossed sheep off a ship. As the friend heaved the cardboard animals off stage, he squealed making a sound you would imagine coming from the sheep. The first time was funny; the second and third time seemed kinda overkill.
• But those voices — wow!: There wasn't a weak voice on the stage, from the excellent Arizona Opera Chorus to the Marion Roose Pullin Studio Artists in lead roles, including Porter and Sanchez, and especially Galka. This is her second year with Arizona Opera's young artist development program and boy does she impress with high range that soars to the rafters and a sweetness in her midrange that is exciting to experience.
• Curt Olds, who we saw way back in 2003 when he first appeared with Arizona Opera in "The Mikado," multitasked as the narrator, Pangloss and two other characters and man was he funny.
•Mykkanen, in his first Arizona appearance, was equally funny as Candide and employed the full breadth of his vocal range, from the lyrical intensity the higher he soared to the vulnerability at his midrange.
• And Quintero, a last-minute add to the cast after Catherine Cook bowed out due to illness, was terrific. She was funny and sassy, and her voice was equal parts opera diva and blues singer.
"Candide" repeats at 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 28, at Tucson Music Hall. The Tucson Desert Song Festival runs through next weekend.
