Candide by Bernstein, Ab (2022/2023), Unter der Regie von Ronny Scholz, Eva Scheiner,, Dirigat Tom Woods, Andreas Kowalewitz, Theater am Bismarckplatz, Regensburg, Deutschland

In tranquil Westphalia, Candide, his secret love Cunegonde, her brother Maximilian and the maid Paquette grow with the optimistic philosophy of life of their teacher Dr. Pangloss from the "best of all worlds". But war destroys the home idyll and scatters the five to the four winds. In search of the "ideal world", earthquakes, inquisitions, shipwrecks and other catastrophes overshadow their travel impressions. They only escape death with difficulty and have to realize firsthand that the best of all possible worlds only exists in philosophy. Disillusioned, everyone finally returns to Westphalia and realizes that gardening alone is what makes people happy. Voltaire's novel CANDIDE - a garish mixture of adventure story, fairy tale and satire - was published in 1759, four years after the devastating Lisbon earthquake and in the middle of the Seven Years' War. At a time that offered sufficient reason to critically question Leibniz' beautiful theodicy of the God-ordained usefulness of this "best of all worlds". The novel was eventually banned, indexed and publicly burned. Voltaire's ruthless attack on optimism inspired Leonard Bernstein to write his most dazzling composition for music theater. He himself called the music for CANDIDE "a declaration of love to Europe". The tongue-in-cheek score makes use of traditional dance forms such as the gavotte, mazurka, polka and waltz and corrupts the conventions of European opera in the most amiable way.