Candide

Opera, operetta, and Broadway joins hands when the New York Philharmonic presents a semi-stage performance of Leonard Bernstein’s satirical, effervescent musical, Candide. Based on Voltaire’s deft comical novel of 1759, the show follows the trevails of a ceaseless optimistic hero in a series of wild adventures and astonishing coincidences.

Bernstein protégée Marin Alsop will conduct the performances, whose cast members are drawn equally from the classical and musical-theater worlds: soprano Kristin Chenoweth (Cunegonde) in her Philharmonic subscription debut; actress-singer Patti LuPone (The Old Lady); tenor Paul Groves (Candide); tenor Stanford Olsen (Governor/Vanderdendur/Ragotski); baritone Sir Thomas Allen (Pangloss/Martin); and the Westminster Symphonic Choir, Joseph Flummerfelt, director. Broadway actor-director Lonny Price will stage the musical, as he did for the Philharmonic’s critically hailed, semi-staged production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd in 2000.