Candide Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

Candide Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 1, 2016

For all of the incredible wonders the Blu-ray era has brought to lovers of the potential of home video, live stage performances of iconic musicals haven’t been particularly well represented. While there have been occasional releases like Victor/Victoria: The Broadway Musical, for the most part lovers of musicals have had to “make do” with the film versions of theatrical properties. Often film adaptations of Broadway (or West End) musicals are legendary in their own right (West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Cabaret), even if those film versions often seriously tweaked elements of the original stage versions. But perhaps just as frequently (and arguably even more frequently), film adaptations can somehow miss the mark and/or magic of the original stage presentations, due either to casting, ham fisted cutting of songs, or uninspired and uncinematic direction. Shout! Factory is now offering a new imprint called Shout Broadway that attempts to overcome this deficit in high definition presentations of iconic stage musicals—in their original stage formulations (more or less, anyway). The first three titles in this series are kind of interesting in a number of different ways, not the least of which is that one of them is not in fact a Broadway production, but a West End one ( Gypsy ), while the other two (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert, Candide) aren’t fully staged productions, but rather concert readings.

It took around two decades more or less, but Leonard Bernstein may have finally believed that it was indeed “the best of all possible worlds" when his long lamented comic operetta Candide finally found an audience in a Hal Prince directed revival that took Broadway by storm in 1973. Candide's “first” Broadway premiere in 1956 was somewhat less rapturously received, with lots of brickbats aimed at Lillian Hellman’s book and rather surprisingly not even that much adoration heaped on Bernstein’s score, a pastiche laden aggregation that has gone on to classic status. The revival boasted a “new, improved” book by Hugh Wheeler, as well as a bunch of retooled lyrics by a coterie of folks (including Stephen Sondheim), but even that wasn’t good enough for Bernstein (who wasn’t intimately involved with the 1973 version), who continued to work on the project, ultimately releasing his so-called “final revised version” in the late eighties, one which drew fairly heavily on the Wheeler revisions (revisions which were themselves revised for subsequent operatic—as opposed to musical comedy—productions), but which reordered some tunes, reorchestrated others and generally fussed and finessed various elements.

This 2004 concert version of Bernstein’s ultimately beloved piece is “a little this-a, a little that-a,” utilizing elements from the stripped down 1973 Wheeler revision, a 1982 New York City opera version, the late eighties’ Scottish Opera version, and a so-called “standard” concert version. (Got that?) While for those who love the history and/or nuts and bolts of productions like this, this kind of background may be interesting, the good news for the "uninitiated" is, it hardly matters how this version of Candide arrived at its structure, for the strengths of the story and especially the show’s inimitable score make this at least potentially the best of all possible versions.

Candide’s ebullient Overture is one of the few such preludes in the canon of American musical theater to have made it way into the classical music repertory, and it sets an appropriately manic mood for what is to follow. This concert staging ups the whimsy by having conductor Marin Alsop (an acolyte of Bernstein’s) waving her baton in front of a huge sheet emblazoned with the question “Optimism?” on it. As the Overture comes to its flourish filled close, the drape drops, revealing a huge chorus, all wearing “Groucho” glasses and noses. Obviously, this is not going to be a serious trip through any typically operatic sturm und drang.

A narrator (Sir Thomas Allen), who will later become a couple of other characters including Candide’s mentor Doctor Pangloss, arrives to alert the audience that Bernstein’s Candide is not Voltaire’s Candide, despite the obvious similarities. He then goes on to introduce several of the main characters, including the naive Candide (Paul Groves) and the winsome Cunegonde (Kristin Chenoweth), who will then spend the rest of the evening trying desperately to get to happily ever after in what Pangloss keeps insisting is the best of all possible worlds, this despite one horrifying thing after another happening to everyone.

While there’s a more or less through line to the adventures of Candide, Cunegonde and a host of other supporting characters, Candide is by nature a vignette driven piece, and as such having it presented as a staged reading doesn’t really distract from things as much as one might expect. Director Lonny Price keeps things hopping (literally in the case of Candide), with a ton of inventive sight gags (some involving the orchestra and chorus) and a generally lunatic ambience that is appropriately (given those nose and glasses accoutrements) Marx Brothers like at times. Occasionally the video direction misses the mark, with brief moments of focus pulling and a couple of unfortunate framings that don’t reveal punch lines before the New York audience is already laughing hysterically about them (one especially wonderful one involves a certain Bernstein relic that Candide packs into his suitcase when he’s banished from Westphalia). Rather amusingly, given this year’s contentious election season, a certain Manhattan (alleged) billionaire shows up to “fire” a few characters at one point.

The cast is uniformly wonderful, with Patti LuPone hamming it up pretty spectacularly as the Old Lady. Her first interchange with Cunegonde is also wacky and perhaps has added humor in the wake of LuPone’s now infamous on stage meltdowns when she felt audience members weren’t being respectful enough. Bernstein’s music is sung lovingly by the cast, and Chenoweth delivers a delightful if perhaps slightly self conscious “Glitter and Be Gay”.

Candide Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Candide is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is generally a great looking transfer, one that boasts nicely deep black levels, a great gamut of bright colors in terms of some of the costumes being worn, and some above average detail levels, at least when the camera gets in close enough. There are a few anomalies, however. At least one of these is not endemic to the video but rather to the staging—I'm not quite sure what's causing horizontal shadows on several singers, but it's an odd looking element at times (see screenshot 8 and notice the diagonal line going across the upper third or so of the frame—that's actually a shadow). The two other issues are potentially a bit more troubling. I experienced regular bouts of video stuttering, where the image just kind of stumbled for a second or two, but during none of these did I experience any disruption of the audio stream, so I'll be interested to hear from any members if their discs also show this tendency. Also, I'm frankly not sure if this is simply the result of some kind of ugly purple lighting that intrudes at times, but at circa 56:51, the image seems to degrade for a few moments, almost as if it had been upscaled (see the difference between screenshots 3 and 7 to get some idea of what I'm talking about).

Candide Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Candide's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 may not provide tons of immersion, but it's refreshingly clear and full bodied, fully supporting the busy brass and wind figures that accompany many of the songs. There are occasional slight variances in volume which I attribute to the vagaries of a live performance. Generally speaking balance is very good between the singers and the orchestra and there's really appealingly wide dynamic range on display.

Candide Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Unfortunately, there are no supplements on this disc (other than a trailer for Gypsy, which I don't count).

Candide Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Candide has been one of my favorite Bernstein pieces since I was a little boy, and I've loved this particular version since I first saw it on television a decade or so ago. The staged reading aspect is really less of a detriment than might be expected, especially since everything is so resolutely silly anyway. Bernstein's music is a constant marvel, and it's wonderfully sung by this excellent cast. There are a few passing issues with video, but audio is fine, and Candide comes Highly recommended.