This truly fabulous production of Candide was probably the best production of it ever done: it was fully staged with the resources of a major opera company, had a marvelously witty script, superb comic acting, top-notch singing, and a well thought out selection of the way-too-much music written for this show. I taped the original PBS airing of it, and it was one of my favorites for many years until I foolishly loaned it to someone who didn't return it and disappeared. I'd gladly pay a lot of money to get this production on DVD if they'd only release it.

My only slight complaint is that the show feels overly long, but that's the material, there's no way it could have been cut down any further without harming the quality of the show.

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The original libretto was by Lillian Hellman. For the 1974 revival, a new script was written by Hugh Wheeler, and it is this script that has been used ever since. Although most of the lyrics by Richard Wilbur, the principal lyricist, remained, as well those of the other writers, director Harold Prince had Stephen Sondheim rewrite lyrics for one song and add new lyrics for several others that were never used in the original 1956 production of the show.