Sexuality, Is It Relevant?

After reading Elizabeth Crist’s interesting article on Bernstein, I decided to read Nadine Hubbs’ article, Berstein, Homophobia, Historiography, from the journal Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture. The article was very insightful and it heightened my awareness to the role that sexuality played in Bernstein’s life and in his musical works. The article conjured up many thoughts and questions about how sexuality might have played a role in Candide, if any at all.

As I said in my first blog entry, I believe Bernstein was a conflicted individual, caught between two contrasting worlds. Bernstein lived in an era where the autonomy of the individual caused trepidation to ripple throughout the government, liberals or conservatives alike. Bernstein posed two threats to this era: he celebrated social and civil values in his musical works and the ambiguity of his sexual preference was always being questioned. Around the 1940’s, homosexuals were being ostracized based solely on sexual preference. For example, homosexual men and women who served in the military were discharged and blacklisted.

Prior to marriage, Bernstein’s sexual ambiguity adversely affected him when he was denied the director’s position with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, in 1947, because they suspected that he was gay. This catapulted him into a heterosexual marriage that sent his career in an upward trajectory. This façade he hid behind allowed him to win the orchestral post with the New York Philharmonic, but only because he told one of the panel members that, his dear friend and competitor, Dimitri Mitropolous was gay. Additionally, his heterosexual veil allowed him to have homosexual extra marital rendezvous’, which he kept very discreet until later years.

All of the aforementioned information is from the Hubb’s article, which propels me to think that Bernstein is pulling a double-edged sword. The fact that he was victim to discrimination and then the culprit of it only shows how divided he truly was with his sexuality. It also makes me wonder if this influenced any aspect of Candide, or am I over analyzing something that is not there? What about the character Maximilian? He was subjected to sexual encounters with men, he cross-dressed, AND he had stereotypical, gay characteristics. Is Bernstein making a mockery of himself as another way to mask his true identity? Having only seen the Kristin Chenoweth version, I’m curious to see how Maximilian was portrayed in other versions of Candide. Furthermore, is Cunegonde’s confusing love life of rampant sexual encounters and her indecisive desire to be with Candide symbolic of Bernstein’s own personal struggles with love? Again, reading both articles may have made my search for symbolism overly ambitious. However, Candide is full of political, social and moral layers, some of which seem very close to the composer's heart.