Lead-footed 'Candide' revival botches dual identities

By Steven Winn [SF Chronicle, 16 August 2005]

Like "The Threepenny Opera," "Porgy and Bess" and "Sweeney Todd," Leonard Bernstein's "Candide" belongs to two musical realms. Labeled a "comic operetta" by the composer, this ebullient adaptation of Voltaire's great 1759 novel about airy philosophy, bruising reality and hope premiered (and flopped) on Broadway in 1956, fared better there in a 1974 revision and entered the New York City Opera repertoire in 1982.