Marin Alsop, music director of the Bournemouth Symphony and a prot_g_ of Bernstein, conducted. Actor-director Lonny Price, who directed the Philharmonic's 2000 production of Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd, directed both the performance and the telecast.
Candide debuted on Broadway in 1956, with book by Hugh Wheeler, based on Voltaire's 1759 novel, and lyrics by poet Richard Wilbur. It is often performed by opera companies and orchestras; the Philharmonic regularly performs the overture without a conductor in tribute to Bernstein, the group's former music director.