Society has been a topic for many great artists, including Leonard Bernstein. Based on Voltaire’s satire “Candide ou l’Optimisme” in which he destroys Leibnizian optimism (“all is for the best” in this “best of all worlds”), Bernstein wrote his Comic Operetta “Candide” in which tenor Maximilian Mayer as the protagonist desperately tries to maintain the optimism that his teacher Pangloss had infused him with, despite witnessing natural disasters, terrible wars, abuse, betrayal, and disease.
Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
Leonard Bernstein: “Candide”
Maximilian Mayer: Candide
May 13, 14, 18, 20.