‘Candide’: A Campy Australian Spin On A Bernstein Classic

You can tell Bernstein’s Candide and West Side Story were written around the same time (in the mid 1950s) by the musical references and strains that link the two. However, Broadway audiences preferred the easily memorable and more melodic tunes of West Side Story, and clearly found the more complex rhythms and tunes of Candide difficult to understand and appreciate, despite the wonderful overture of Candide, which prefigures many of the tunes from the operetta.

Candide lasted only some 70 shows, while West Side Story went on to perform ten times as many.

Candide’s Australian moment has come, however, during Sydney’s 2025 Mardi Gras season, which has inspired director Dean Bryant to really camp it up.

Candide is based on Voltaire’s satirical story of a young man whose naivety is tested when he goes out in the world only to find it is immoral, wicked and cruel.

He is the illegitimate nephew of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronck, and has been raised alongside the Baron’s stepdaughter Cunegonde, with whom he falls in love, the Baron’s stepson Maximilian, and the servant girl Paquette.

All four have been indoctrinated by the philosopher Professor Pangloss (the marvellous Eddie Perfect, who also sings the role of the narrator Voltaire), who tells his charges that “everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds,” a theme that is reiterated somewhat ironically many times throughout the operetta.

Candide (sung by Lyndon Watts) thinks life is definitely not “the best in this best of all possible worlds”. His hardship begins when he is tossed out of the Baron’s castle in Westphalia after the Baron finds out he is in love with Cunegonde (Annie Aitken). Lucky for him, however, the castle then burns down and it seems all inside are lost (although the good ones re-appear without explanation later in this operetta.)

As the naïf adolescent travels the world from Westphalia to Lisbon to Paris and Montevideo, he discovers the world is a corrupt, vicious and depraved place.

His journeys are depicted on stage in a very Aussie way. The centrepiece on stage is an old-fashioned Aussie caravan that the clever set designer Dann Barber has used to depict Candide’s (and others’) progress through the world. He has inserted cutaway doors on the side of the old-fashioned vehicle that open fully to reveal different locations and actions as Candide makes his way through the world. 

In Paris, for example, he discovers that his love Cunegonde has become a courtesan, but this is not the time to be high-minded. As a Parisian showgirl laden with jewels, Annie Aitken brings the house down when she sings Cunegonde’s aria “Glitter and Be Gay” from the caravan, which doubles as her boudoir. The applause lasted for minutes.

Euan Fistrovic Doidge as Maximillian was another who drew extended laughs from the audience on opening night with his portrayal of a Jesuit brother in an Amazonian monastery.

The versatile John Longmuir has taken off his Figaro costume (from his starring role in the recently concluded season of The Barber of Seville) and donned that of the Grand Inquisitor for Candide, and thoroughly enjoys his new ominous role.

Dominica Matthews was marvellous as the Polish lady, emphasising the humour of her songs “I am easily assimilated” and “I am suddenly Spanish”.

The broad Australian accents, (read “bogan”), together with the caravan, the infectious Australian take, and most of all, Bernstein’s musical magic, gloriously realised through the conjuring wand of Brett Weymark’s baton, make the Sydney Opera House the natural home for this delightful evening’s entertainment.

Candide is playing at the Sydney Opera House from 20 February – 14 March 2025