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Skylark Opera opens new season with 'Candide'

Skylark Opera: 'Candide' interview
skylark opera candide cast photo
Cast photo for Skylark Opera's 'Candide'; L-R: Cunegonde (Jennifer Baldwin Peden), Voltaire (Gary Briggle) and Candide (Peter Middlecamp).
John Engstrom

Candide, Leonard Bernstein's classic, opens a new season of Skylark Opera in St. Paul, Minn., this weekend.

It's a natural progression for Skylark and director Bob Neu. He directed Skylark Opera productions of the two Bernstein shows that preceded Candide: Wonderful Town and On the Town. (Bob also directed a Fringe Festival production of Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti.)

Clearly, Leonard Bernstein has special meaning for Skylark and Bob Neu. That goes for Neu's superb cast as well, including Peter Middlecamp performing his first Candide; veteran actress Jennifer Baldwin Peden, in her (surprisingly) first Cunagonde; and the wise Dr. Pangloss — a sage in and out of character — Gary Briggle, performing Candide for his fifth time!

They all visited Classical MPR, along with Jennifer Maren as Paquette and Andrew Wannigmann as Maximilian, to sing a song of youthful enlightenment — and prenuptial disagreement!

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