point, with the triumph of the older tradition, My Fair Lady
(opened March 1956), playing at the Mark Hellinger, a few
blocks from Bernstein’s Candide(opened December 1956) at
the Martin Beck, and only steps from West Side Story(opened
September 1957) at the Winter Garden.
The Bernstein shows invert the Rodgers and Hammerstein
ensemble ethos. We have glanced at the ending of Candide.
Now glance at the beginning. Candidebegins with Pangloss
and the chorus singing “The Best of All Possible Worlds,”
which takes the notions of weddings and festivities celebrated
in Oklahoma!and Carouseland turns them around. Why are
there so many divorces in the best of all possible worlds? the
bride-to-be wonders on her wedding day. Because then people
can try the wonders of marriage over and over again, sings
Pangloss. The chorus backs him by repeating his lines. It is
Rodgers and Hammerstein being played through a Gilbert and
Sullivan routine with the chorus, and perhaps it seems like
good-hearted joshing for a moment. But before the scene is
over, a new choral number is the occasion for an outburst of
war, pillage, and rape, including the rape of the bride-to-be.
This is not “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over.” The next scene
gives us the Lisbon earthquake and the Inquisition. Satire had
long been a Broadway genre, of course, but this was a monster
satire, out to destroy all the romantic notions that had made
the Broadway musical a successful commodity, and the notion
that community can be forged through song and dance disap-
peared early.^12
Candideflopped in 1956, despite decent reviews and imme-
diate recognition for the score. Broadway was not ready for
Voltaire. West Side Storywas a great success in 1957, however,
and its ensemble opening, with the violence of gang warfare
being danced in a jazz ballet, is one of the defining moments of
musical theatre. One reason for its success was that it concen-
trated its innovations into one basic convention of musicals,
92 CHAPTER FOUR
(^12) Mordden’s chapter on Candidein Everything’s Coming Up Rosessumma-
rizes the rewrites Candidehas received and gives solid praise to the original
version.