At the time of year when Edinburgh is considered to be the epicentre of Scottish culture, Scottish opera has just staged the not to be missed musical event of the season in Glasgow with its inventive, invigorating production of Candide. The company has pedigree with Leonard Bernstein’s flawed masterpiece: the definitive “Scottish Opera version” was created with the maestro’s protege, John Mauceri, at the helm and Bernstein himself overseeing in Glasgow in the late 80s.
If that was a thoroughly traditional affair, all big wigs and bigger frocks, then Jack Furness’s brilliant and bold new production takes an entirely fresh look at the piece. Staged as a promenade performance in a marquee in the company’s production studios – the setting for last summer’s memorable Falstaff – this production reimagines Candide for the social media age. It’s a brilliant conceit: the glib superficiality of Dr Pangloss’s philosophy that “this is the best of all possible worlds” is a perfect fit for the vacuous nature of an age of reality TV and Instagram celebrity. At the same time, the series of disasters that befall the hapless Candide and his companions – war, religious persecution, slavery and violence – remain all too relevant today.
