Are there ANY adequate recordings of this wonderful show?
path31783 | NJ | 12/21/1999
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Leonard Bernstein's score for Candide is undoubtably his, and quite possibly the theater's, best writing; yet, even on this so-called complete recording, no one has ever been able to capture the magic to any degree of satisfaction. This CD seems to have been recorded live from the opera house stage, so distant sound the singers and tinny the orchestra. Being opera performers, no one knows how to act a song; the Old Lady's exhuberant tango is limp and lifeless, as are many of Cunegonde's songs. Also, the conducting is strangely off-beat; Make Our Garden Grow, the joyous finale, is done in a tempo more suited to a requiem mass. Not only that, but despite the inclusion of several wonderful never-before-eard songs - The recording STILL isnt complete! It comprises only HIGHLIGHTS of what probably still wasnt a complete performed version. There has been so much music written for this show over the last fifty-odd years that I fear no complete version will ever be made! Even if one was done in a studio, with a different track for every alternate set of lyrics for each song, with the attempted plot (which has never worked on stage) ignored completely, with five cd's in the compilation, I and many other enthusiasts would gladly buy it. I am now in possession of the woefully short original cast recording, the expanded-but-inadequate 1997 b'way version, and this poor specimen (which in truth is worth buying just for the four tracks it possesses that, apparently, no others do,) yet I have NEVER heard the entire magnificent score. It really is a shame."
