| Blazing Confidence and Innovation |
Candide |
| Welsh National Opera , Wales Millennium Centre , September 25, 2025 |
Scottish Opera produced Leonard Bernstein’s 1953 operetta in 1988 and the National Theatre did so in 1999. Welsh National Opera comes to it a generation later with two differences. The first is context. Voltaire’s wildly picaresque story opens in Westphalia, his characters inhabiting the tranquil court, albeit governed with rules of social stratification. The biggest concern to Jack Holton's Maximilian is a pimple that spoils his regarding admiration of himself in a mirror. An army of Bulgarians assaults their little arcadia with a blizzard of missiles and weaponry. Countries invaded each other then for any number of pretexts, says Rakie Ayola's narrator. “Imagine that.” Rakie Ayola is more regularly seen on a live stage in drama. Her vocal range is as impressive as her dramatic prowess. She doubles at Doctor Pangloss, the Leibnizian figure who is the butt of Voltaire’s satire, and his philosophy of optimism taken to absurd limits. He acquires a metal nose, as did the real-life Tycho Brahe, the result of a chancre that has been carried over from the New World. Ah, he says, but the discovery of new lands also brought the gift of chocolate, tobacco and the potato. Therefore the thesis of perpetual optimism is sustained. The travellers chance to hit Lisbon in the wake of the devastating earthquake. The Inquisition look for human agency that has angered divine providence. Then, now and perpetually, the accusing eye falls on strangers. Right to the end Pangloss sees advantage in everything, the rope from which he is to swing has a wonder of strength and various usefulnesses to it. The second change that separates the production from those of a generation back is technical. The auto-da-fe in Lisbon is a gruesome sight. It is gruesome until a giant hand drops down and plucks from the dangling victim its spirit in the form of a winged angelic figure. “Candide” is powered by animation across a black curtain of unbroken wit and flair. Director James Bonas' team includes Grégoire Pont (Video and Animations), Thibault Vancraenenbroeck (Set Designer), Nathalie Pallandre (Costume Designer), Rob Casey (Lighting Designer), Sebastian Frost (Sound Designer), Xavier Boyer (Video Editing Assistant). “Candide” is a designer's challenge as its madcap action vaults other destinations that include Paris, Cadiz, El Dorado, Surinam and Constantinople. It has a cartoon-like quality where cruelty and savagery of human behaviour are never far away and where coincidence and re-meetings have a carefree unlikelihood to them. The production concept cleverly mirrors this and the underlying spirit of Voltairean zest. The animation is ever inventive, unfurling camels and sheep, horses and stretch limousines, cable cars and jungle. The makers are unconcerned about the eighteenth century setting. The Eiffel Tower soars, Montevideo is a city of skyscrapers, a dirigible crosses the oceans. The spirited leads are Ed Lyon as Candide and Soraya Mafi as Cunégonde. Aled Hall is the Governor, Ryan Vaughan Davies the Captain and Francesca Saracino Paquette. Amy J Payne appears as a character well into the plot, but the Old Woman leads in rousing numbers "I Am Easily Assimilated" and “What's the use?” In Paris she sings alongside four dustmen with cigarette stubs in their mouths. Bernstein has composed a score with an eclecticism to it. The second act moves the action to Montevideo and the music prefigures it with Latin rhythms. Ryan McAdams conducts with vigour. If there are high points one is the close. “How to believe in divine providence and keep your sanity?” Candide, not alone, asks of himself. At the end he has learned that the seeking of meaning in a meaningless world has an answer. That is to find work and do it with intensity of purpose. “We'll make our garden grow” starts with a single voice. “And let us try, Before we die, To make some sense of life. We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good We'll do the best we know. We'll build our house and chop our wood And make our garden grow... And make our garden grow.” It rises to the full company singing. The chorus of the Wales National Opera has a reputation of renown. They soar with “Lisbon Fair” and “Pilgrim's Procession.” The volume of sound and its tonal richness for the finale are titanic. By contrast in the first act, at the beginning of his character's travails, Ed Lyon is alone on stage to sing words of lament that pluck at the heart. “My world is dust now, And all I loved is dead. Oh, let me trust now In what my master said: "There is a sweetness in every woe." It must be so. It must be so.” “Candide” is a production of confidence and dazzle from a company at a purring peak, a national company doing what it is here to do. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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