By Diane Parkes
When Welsh National Opera’s new production of Leonard Bernstein’s zany Candide premiered two years ago it was critically acclaimed and loved by audiences – so much so that the show is back on tour this Autumn.
Playing at Mayflower Theatre on 2 October, Candide is based on the novella by French Enlightenment author Voltaire and tells of the adventures of Candide, his love Cunégonde and their tutor Pangloss in a topsy turvy world where one disaster follows another.
Using ingenious animation, the show, directed by James Bonas, takes audiences from Europe to El Dorado, through a host of dramatic adventures.
Playing the dual role of Pangloss and the Narrator, Welsh actress Rakie Ayola has been a huge fan of Candide for nearly 30 years so is delighted to be taking part in the show.
“I’ve loved Candide since I saw it at the National Theatre in the mid-nineties with Daniel Evans, Clive Rowe, and Simon Russell Beale playing the part I’m playing,” she says. “I bought the cast recording so I’ve lived with that production all these years on CD.”
As a BAFTA award-winning screen and stage actor who has appeared in works as diverse as the mythological series Kaos, the post-apocalyptic drama On Bear Ridge and the West End hit Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Rakie was keen to take on a new challenge with her first roles in the opera world.
“Pangloss is the teacher,” she says. “He has a philosophy which is that everything that happens happens for the best and we live in the best of possible worlds and that whatever happens, good, bad or indifferent you shouldn’t worry about it.
“That is what he has tried to teach these young people and then these young people go out into the world and they are battered by all kinds of things, as indeed is Pangloss, and Candide is desperately having to look for the good in all the bad that people do and in the bad that he does because of this philosophy.
“And the piece takes a swipe at just about everyone. It’s really important to remember they take a swipe at everybody, no-one escapes – the church, all faiths, it’s sexist, it’s misogynistic, it’s xenophobic, it’s nationalistic, it’s racist of everyone. Everyone is being held under a comic microscope.”
As in Voltaire’s original tale, the Pangloss/Narrator character is usually played by a male in the operetta but the WNO production flips the gender.
“Essentially Pangloss is just a very happy person all the time and in a way that weirdly sits maybe more ina female body somehow,” Rakie says. “As the Narrator I do a lot of wandering about. I’ve decided to learn it rather than read it, which you don’t have to do in that part, but I decided to because it frees you up to enjoy the language a bit more.
“So my Narrator can become a bit more like the kind of person you see in Queen Street in Cardiff who seems to be talking to a group of people that only they can see. They are telling the world and if you stick around there is usually some wisdom in all of that. And out of that my Pangloss becomes this just really chirpy teacher who thinks you are all amazing.”
The joint role is largely spoken but does feature some songs.
“I don’t have a classical voice but when I got to drama school all I knew was musicals so I could tell you all about Streisand and Garland, Rodgers and Hammerstein,” Rakie recalls. “And what I’ve found with this show is that the kind of voice I have works for Pangloss.”
Rakie was born in Ely in Cardiff and performing at the city’s Wales Millennium Centre is a dream come true.
“Everything about this is so wonderful,” she says. “I’ve looked at WMC and wondered if I’d ever work there, if I did a tour that might come to Cardiff or something, so this is a massive first being on that stage and being in the city.
“Wales has sort of been calling me back in recent years, and it’s made me think that maybe all the things that I crossed off my wish list because they are never going to happen, I should put them back. I’m doing a production with the Welsh National Opera at WMC – I can’t remember being this happy. I love going to work, I love being in the room.”
Voltaire was writing in 18th century France and Bernstein in 1950s New York but Rakie believes Candide very much has a message for today.
“The work is saying something about the human condition. It’s saying human beings are fickle, foolish, cruel things and I think that sold it for me. A lot of the work I’ve done is saying something about the human condition and that is huge for me.
“If we get it right, then I think a few times during the show people will just sit and think ‘wow, humans just haven’t evolved enough’. We stopped evolving probably in the 15th century, we just have technology that makes us think we have evolved. And this show is taking a swipe at that. I’m hoping people will think ‘my God this could have been written yesterday’.”
Welsh tenor Aled Hall played the roles of Argentinian governor Don Fernando and the duplicitous sea captain Vanderdendur in the 2023 tour of the production and couldn’t resist returning to the show this Autumn.
“I was lucky enough to be in the first time around two years ago and it was the first time for me to take on these two roles,” he says.
“When they asked me to do the Governor the roles were totally new to me, I didn’t know much about them at all. And as soon as I opened the score and heard the music and read the dialogue I thought ‘oh my God, these are written for me’.”
Both of Aled’s characters appear in the second half of the story.
“I come on in Act Two and I’m like a whirlwind. Playing the two different characters means I’m basically on there for the rest of the night with great mad scenes.
“They are crazy, that’s why they asked me to play them!” Aled laughs. “And they are a lot of fun. In the grand scheme of things both of them are meanies but they’re comedy meanies – and the comedy element is the most important. It’s not as if I’m really mean and nasty in the show, it’s within the concept of being a comedy baddy. Baddies are always great to play.
“The Governor is a real hot-blooded man who falls for everybody and wants to marry everyone he comes across which is great fun to play. He is very Spanish and Vanderdendur is supposed to be a Dutch merchant but I said, seeing as we’re starting in Cardiff, why not make him Welsh you know, so he’s all Valleys. He’s a wheeler dealer so he’s now a Welsh Del Boy.”
Aled, who grew up in Carmarthenshire, has a long connection with WNO.
“They were very kind to sponsor me when I was a young singer in about 1994, 1995 and 1996, they put me through the National Opera Studio under their name and it’s nice for them to invite me back. I try and do the best that I can for them. With this show, it’s just a joy to step out there and have an absolute ball – and that doesn’t happen very often in this profession.”
Aled has sung in a host of classic operas including Tosca, The Marriage of Figaro, Albert Herring and Carmen and he says audiences will love this WNO production of Bernstein’s operetta.
“Candide is a good introduction to opera because it’s not heavy, it’s on the lighter side. It’s a little bit like Sweeney Todd in that it’s a cross-over between West End and opera. For newcomers it’s ideal.
“And the production is absolutely amazing, I couldn’t believe it the first time I did it to see the concept, this chainmail curtain and these cartoons projected on there. So we don’t have much scenery as such because it’s projections, it’s so clever.
“This production has everything – all singing, all dancing and a lot of comedy. It’s a wonderful Chorus here at WNO and an amazing Orchestra and some great singers and wonderful dancers. And the music is just phenomenal, you can’t go wrong.
“If there’s any show you should come and see this year it’s this one because everyone will leave happy and have had a great night at the theatre.”
Tickets for Welsh National Opera’s A Night at the Opera, Candide and Tosca (1 – 3 October 2025) are on sale at mayflower.org.uk or 02380 711811.
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