One of the great legacies of Leonard Bernstein’s career, Candide premiered on Broadway, at the Martin Beck Theater in New York on December 1, 1956. Although the original season met with mixed reviews, the Colombia Records recording of the original cast album thrived and Bernstein's score gained a sort of cult status.
Over the coming decades Bernstein collaborated on five versions of his operetta, each time adding to the show’s song list, and further enhancing the work’s increasingly legendary reputation.