Ravinia 2019, Issue 4, Week 8

7:30 PM SATURDAY, JULY 27, 2019 PAVILION CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA MARIN ALSOP, conductor JAMIE BERNSTEIN, host ISABEL LEONARD, soprano † MICHELLE DEYOUNG, mezzo NILS NILSEN, tenor PAULO SZOT, baritone ROBERT CHEN, violin IFETAYO ALI-LANDING, cello † HARMONY ZHU, piano WINDY CITY PERFORMING ARTS ERIC ESPARZA, director Leonard Bernstein: Man For All Music Overture to Candide Times Square: 1944 from On the Town “A Simple Song” from Mass Paulo Szot Meditation No. 3 from Three Meditations from ‘Mass’ * Ifetayo Ali-Landing Lamentation from Symphony No. 1 ( Jeremiah ) Michelle DeYoung “The Best of All Possible Worlds” from Candide Nils Nilsen; Paulo Szot The Masque and The Epilogue from Symphony No. 2 ( Age of Anxiety ) Harmony Zhu Socrates: Alcibiades from Serenade (after Plato’s ‘Symposium’) Robert Chen –Intermission– Danzon and Galop from Fancy Free “One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man” from Wonderful Town Michelle DeYoung (with solo piano) “So Pretty” Isabel Leonard (with solo piano) Selections from West Side Story Somewhere Isabel Leonard; Michelle DeYoung; Nils Nilsen; Paulo Szot A Boy Like That / I Have a Love Isabel Leonard; Michelle DeYoung Something’s Coming Paulo Szot Tonight (Balcony Scene) Isabel Leonard; Paulo Szot “Make Our Garden Grow” from Candide Isabel Leonard; Michelle DeYoung; Nils Nilsen; Paulo Szot; Windy City Performing Arts † Ravinia debut * First performance at Ravinia Ravinia expresses its appreciation for the generous support of Season Sponsor the Ravinia Women’s Board . LEONARD BERNSTEIN (1918–90) Selections from Candide Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two B-flat, one E-flat and one bass clarinets, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, tenor drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle, glockenspiel, xylophone, harp, and strings Lillian Hellman proposed an adaptation of Can- dide —a play by 18th-century writer Voltaire, the “father of the French Revolution”—to Bernstein in September 1950, but the busy composer/ conductor/pianist did not consent to “having a fling” with Candide for four more years. This “comic operetta,” an unflattering allegory for the anti-Communist crusade from which America was only recently emerging, experienced a dif- ficult gestation: Hellman wrote at her typically slow pace, Bernstein worked on his film score to On the Waterfront and began West Side Story , and the whole production went through a series of lyricists—John La Touche, Dorothy Parker, and, finally, Richard Wilbur, with adaptations by Bernstein and Hellman. (Stephen Sondheim contributed lyrics to later productions.) Candide opened on Broadway at the Martin Beck Theater on December 1, 1956, but the show ran for a disappointing 73 performances. Crit- ics recognized Candide ’s conceptual brilliance, but audiences found the production too erudite and confusing. Over the past four decades, there have been numerous revivals and revisions, occasionally in direct collaboration with Bern- stein, before the composer authorized his “final revised version” in 1988. The overture immediately conjures an opti- mistic atmosphere with its preview of selected themes from the operetta. The young man Can- dide is betrothed to the lovely ingenue Cune- gonde. Dr. Pangloss philosophizes that “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds,” a rather naive statement immediately challenged by a series of misfortunes: Cunegonde’s alleged Lillian Hellman, who adapted Voltaire’s comic satire Candide for Bernstein RAVINIA MAGAZINE | JULY 22 – JULY 28, 2019 108