Voltaire and Bernstein did well (with help from Hugh Wheeler, Richard
Wilbur, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and Stephen Sondheim), but it
was Rita Moreno who brought the house down tonight in Davies Hall.

Halfway through the SF Symphony presentation of "Candide," Patrick Summers
turned his head to see what the problem was.  The orchestra played, but
something was missing.  Singing the Old Lady in a "semi-staged production,"
which placed the soloists between the conductor and the audience, Moreno
missed the entrance in a duet.

Still in character, with the Hispanic-Yiddish-French-German accent
"resembling no human language," Moreno told Summers:  "Start again." She
then shrugged her shoulder and added a line worthy of Voltaire himself:
"These things happen."

Her spontaneity and good humor were wonderful ("you had to be there"),
but she wasn't quite right.

Things such as a "Rhinegold"-length, uncut production of "Candide" on
a Symphony Pops concert, with an amazing orchestral performance do not
happen.  Using relatively small forces, Summers gave the score a reading
that brought out its usually unheard richness and complexity.  Normally,
so much of Bernstein's extraordinary writing gets lost in the contest
with the soloists, the audience laughter and applause that it was a kind
of revelation to hear the musicians (Mark Volkert, concertmaster) and
Vance George's Symphony Chorus up front in music (if physically upstage).

The Symphony fielded a brilliant cast and then tried its best to sabotage
the singers with high-level amplification from body mikes.  Amplification
jockeys will never admit that electronics actually makes the text more
difficult to understand - they forever claim that "voices get lost in a
large house." Boloney.  The all-important text for "Candide" came through,
partially and demanding an effort on part of the audience, only because of
the "old-fashioned" training and excellence of the singers, in a valiant
effort to overcome the electronic din.

It wouldn't matter if you ran Niagara over the PA to mess up George Hearn's
diction; his Pangloss still came through wonderfully well.  Hearn and
Moreno are such pleasure to watch and hear:  they make everything natural,
easy, heart-warming.  In the title role, a star from another generation,
Jason Danieley did a splendid job, both as a comedian and tugging at
heartstrings, from "It Must Be So" to "Make Our Garden Grow." In addition
to his singing and acting accomplishments, Danieley also contributed
greatly to the show by bringing along his wondrous real-life bride, Marin
Mazzie.  She took the next-to-nothing role of Paquette, just so that the
couple could work together.

Jennifer Welch-Babidge's Conegonde was among the best I've seen and heard.
I'd give an eyetooth to hear her "Glitter and Be Gay" without somebody
riding the gain.  Stanford Olsen was in tenor heaven tonight in four roles.

Hearing "Candide" in mid-2002 is a bit unsettling.  How did Voltaire
and the collaborators on the musicals foresee so clearly disclosure of
boundless corruption in business, government and the church? Not a word
was "updated" in the text and yet much of it matched headlines from today's
newspaper.

With all the excellence around, running the show to three hours (the
Scottish Opera edition), instead of presenting a compact, two-hour version
without intermission is questionable.  Most of the second act is reprise,
new material is weak compared with the first act, and the story cannot
be sustained with yet new rehashes of calamity.  Were it not for Hearn's
unique ability to make any material palatable with a shrug, a wave of the
hand, it would have been even more difficult take additional instances
of riotous rape, pillage and mass-murder.  It was also to Hearn's credit
that he made "Words, Words, Words" acceptable; likewise, Moreno and
Welch-Babidge put their hearts into "We Are Women," but these are not
songs on level with the rest of Bernstein's gems, with the first act.

Janos Gereben/SF
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