Candide at the Komische Oper. Went there with dread, the reviews were unenthusiastic, three hours of an opera which Lenny Bernstein rewrote several times because he wasn't happy with the libretto (which funnily Dorothy Parker helped to write).
But I had a truly amazing time. Things are disquieting, out there in the world and in my closest circles, so I can see why someone like Voltaire (on whose satire the libretto is based) would feel tempted to rip apart the concept of a world where everything is good as is. Voltaire wrote it at the time when all of Europe's intelligentsia reacted with shock to that horrible earthquake in Lissabon in 1775, where something like half of the population was killed (and ironically the red light district was spared).
Voltaire struggled with Leibnitz’ view that we are living in the best of all possible worlds ... I don’t, they call it Theodicy, read Book Hiob to understand that here all human attempts to rationalize and explain are ultimately second best. However, our times are disquieting, no doubt, so “Candide” was a good choice. Not only because my cousin Maxi Oppersdorff took us out, but I seem to have forgotten just how witty Voltaire’s words can be, he ridicules the pious but he does it with so much wit that one is ready to forgive him...
And I forgot how fantastic Bernstein’s ability was to pull all stops and make you enjoy life musically. He is high up there were those few geniuses who managed to combine high with low brow, this is Mahler married with Broadway, absolutely delicious. And Barry Kosky, the new boss at Komische Oper, is clearly a bl*** genius himself. Costumes were funny and amazing, flirting with Monty Python, Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson, the cast danced, sang, acted like Gods, the stage, everything mindblowing. And musically, again mindblowing! Standing ovations for Jordan de Souza (in my row at least).
Bravo to the @KomischeOper, I’m going back there more often from now on! This is how modern opera should be!
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