The Filene Center is the best of all possible worlds for this special concert staging of Bernstein’s ode to optimism.

Voltaire’s Candide (or Optimism) is a sprawling and bewildering satire that we mere mortals are hard pressed to comprehend. But it is a measure of Leonard Bernstein’s genius that when we take Candide’s musical journey, we feel simultaneously the naïveté of the optimistic young man and the jaded cynical world around him. Truly touching moments (Candide’s “It Must Be So”) mix with broad comedy (the Old Lady’s “I Am Easily Assimilated”) and unflinching parody (“What a Day for an Auto-da-fè!”), until it all washes away in the glorious “Make Our Garden Grow” finale.

Conductor Stephen Lord and the National Symphony Orchestra again work their magic in this concert staging format. Come to the Filene Center in July, where it truly will be all for the best in the best of all possible worlds!

Join us an hour before show time for a Pre-Performance Preview on the Old Farmhouse Lawn for lectures and demonstrations that offer insight and interpretation of the evening’s performance.
More Information on the Pre-Performance Preview Series