Catalogue
English

Teatro San Carlo, ''Candide''

Naples

The hemicycle is towered above by a big Rear-illuminated backdrop RNV - Nevada, that works like a diffuser for the vivacious colours borrowed by the Pop Art and creates a syncretism of styles and epoches - the '700 and the Fifties - with a notable symbolic value.A television studio is the background for the action, that take place, in the plot, in a multiplicity of places evoked by the scenography and by the projections.The studio was conceived by Nicola Rubertelli in an functional way for the mise-en-scène: the hemicycle that winds the gallery of the public is realized in white panels that bring to the mind in a stylized way the neoclassic architecture contemporary to Voltaire and, in the meantime, they exploit to the best the chromatic illumination and the effect of the projections.
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The scenography by h4>Nicola Rubertelli is articulated around the paintings by Larry Rivers, a pop artist in the New York School and friend of Bernstein. On the big backdrop made of ASC1000S - Sceno 1.000 cm muslin is painted in fact one of the portraits that Rivers painted to the author of West Side Story.The stage direction by Lorenzo Mariani fit in the story in a television studio of the Fifties, the epoch in which Bernstein «... in full McCarthyism, put in music and in scene the masterpiece of Voltaire, a scratching satire of the optimism of who believes to live in the best of possible worlds, a lash to the hypocrisy of the political power, a manifesto of that anti-clericalism born in the century of the Enlightenment.»Sandro Compagnone, from L'opera, n. 213, page 32.
The hemicycle is towered above by a big Rear-illuminated backdrop RNV - Nevada here illuminated with yellow light.Another combination of the fantasmagoricis light and colours games that followed the twenty-seven scenes of the musical by Bernstein, «... a tangled story, whose protagonist crosses the four continents, about twenty nations and about ten cities [...] a genial pastiche, in which it seems to be mixed Richard Strauss and Broadway, the symphonic rush and the operetta.»Sandro Compagnone, ibidem. About Candide it's commonly affirmed that its score belongs to the series of masterpieces that are not classifiable in any kind as Il viaggio a Reims by Rossini or Les Contes d'Hoffmann by Offenbach, because they remix as a whirlwind a multiplicity of styles, in this case the thoughtlessness of the operetta, the spectacular manner of the musical and the depths of the lyric opera.
The big backdrop made of white BGO - Gobelin tulle that veils the whole proscenium of the Teatro San Carlo was transformed here, thanks to the projections, in the gigantic monitor of an American television of the Fifties, that is broadcasting the redundant image of Candide that circles in the air, fading on the studio that is left in the semi-obscurity.To strengthen the projection on the backdrop in white BGO - Gobelin tulle, Nicola Rubertelli set behind this one, at a little distance, an identical black BGO - Gobelin. The apparent lightness of the irony with which the stories of the protagonist are narrated hides one of the most bitter comments of the hypocrisy of the society, hypocrisy that has overcome without difficulty the evolution of the times, from those of Voltaire, to those in which Bernstein conceived this musical, to today's times, in which nothing seems to have been changed.
A moment of meditation for Candide while, on a background with new colours, the ballet dancers are developing a passage typical of musicals.Behind three of the six doors practiced in the hemicycle were set as many painted backdrops on ASC1000S - Sceno 1.000 cm muslin in a Graffiti Writing style that appeared when the doors were opened.
The roulette is projected on the backdrop behind, that is made of black BGO - Gobelin tulle, while another small backdrop made of BGO - Gobelin tulle is stretched on a framework crowned by lights in the way frequently used by the musical's scenographies, is suspended at the top in front of the first backdrop.The libretto of Candide was elaborated by Bernstein together with various co-authors, among which the writer Lillian Wellman excelled.Its debut, that preceded of one year the triumph of West Side Story, was a flop, but Bernstein elaborated again his own work up to present a second layout of it in New York in 1973 and a third in Glasgow in 1989.Today it is considered of the maximum vertexes never reached by the art of United States.
The projection of the big dancing characters is effected in transparency on the big backdrop made of black BGO - Gobelin tulle that is placed among the ballet dancer in the foreground and the gallery of the television studio.The costumes by Giusi Giustino were a notable support in to favor the windmill of stories and situations that compose the kaleidoscopic musical by Bernstein.
The hemicycle is towered above by a big Rear-illuminated backdrop RNV - Nevada, that works like a diffuser for the vivacious colours borrowed by the Pop Art and creates a syncretism of styles and epoches - the '700 and the Fifties - with a notable symbolic value.A television studio is the background for the action, that take place, in the plot, in a multiplicity of places evoked by the scenography and by the projections.The studio was conceived by Nicola Rubertelli in an functional way for the mise-en-scène: the hemicycle that winds the gallery of the public is realized in white panels that bring to the mind in a stylized way the neoclassic architecture contemporary to Voltaire and, in the meantime, they exploit to the best the chromatic illumination and the effect of the projections.
Candide
Musical in twenty-seven scenes
Music
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
Libretto
Leonard Bernstein
Lillian Hellman
John La Touche
Richard Wilbur
from Voltaire
First night
Boston, Colonial Theatre, 29/10/1956
Scenography,
technical direction
Nicola Rubertelli
Costume design
Giusi Giustino
Video projections
Massimo Iaquone
Light design
Franco Angelo Ferrari
Coreography
Sean Curran
Stage direction
Lorenzo Mariani
Staging
Teatro San Carlo of Naples
Season
2006/2007

Materials used in this production

ASC - Sceno

Muslin and canvas

BGO - Gobelin

Scrim and bobbinet fabrics

RNV - Nevada

Rear-projection films

Information on data processing
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