Glitter and Be Gay (Candide)

Candide opened at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York on 1 December 1956 and closed after seventy-three performances. Lillian Hellman's book, drawn from Voltaire, was judged too severe for Broadway; Bernstein's score was not, and it survived the failure. Lyrics came from Richard Wilbur, John Latouche, Dorothy Parker and Hellman herself. Over four decades the work was rewritten repeatedly — by Hugh Wheeler for Harold Prince in 1973, then again for opera houses — and Bernstein went on revising it until 1989. The overture entered the concert repertory long before the stage version settled.