Candide’s journey from page to stage was famously bumpy. Bernstein himself never seemed completely satisfied with the work, which he envisioned as an American version of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. (It’s billed at the NYC Opera as “The Great American Opera.”) He and playwright Lillian Hellman began collaborating on the musical adaptation of Voltaire’s satirical novel in 1954, united in their indignation over the anti-Communist McCarthy hearings. The heavily revised work, which also featured contributions from poet Richard Wilbur and Hellman’s friend Dorothy Parker — opened on Broadway in 1956, and closed after an abysmal 73 performances.

When Hellman refused to work on a rewrite, additional collaborators were brought in; over the next twenty years, six writers contributed lyrics, characters were modified and redrafted, and segments of the operetta edited in and out. Distinguished director-producer Harold “Hal” Prince (West Side Story, Cabaret) revived the operetta in one form for Broadway in 1974, where it enjoyed a 740 performance run, and won that year’s Tony for Hugh Wheeler’s new book.

Yet another Prince production — known as “the opera house version” – debuted at the State Theater in 1982 with lyrics by Wilbur, and additional lyrics by Bernstein, John Latouche and Stephen Sondheim. It restored numerous sections of music that had been previously discarded, in response to requests from opera companies for a more legitimate version of Bernstein’s vision.

Audiences are often conflicted over their response to Candide, unsure of whether to approach it as a musical or as an opera. Although the score is almost universally admired — the original 1956 Broadway cast recording has something of a cult following — as a dramatic work, it loses momentum in the filler-heavy second half before settling into its final, improbably happy ending – banishments, betrayals, beatings, murders, rapes, shipwreck, plague and earthquake all forgotten. (Did I mention that it’s a comedy?)

Stage and screen star Richard Kind led the cast in the dual roles of Dr. Pangloss/Voltaire. Daniel Reichard, who created the role of Bob Gaudio in Jersey Boys on Broadway, was set to star as the ever-optimistic protagonist, but shortly before curtain it was announced that he was battling a stomach flu and would be unable to perform that night. His understudy Shonn Wiley stepped into the lead, performing with confident ease, offering not a hint that this was his debut of the role. For his efforts, Wiley received cheers and a standing ovation – the most enthusiastic reception of the night.

And let us try,
Before we die,
To make some sense of life.
We’re neither pure, nor wise, nor good
We’ll do the best we know.
– Candide, “Make Our Garden Grow”

Herd of African elephants inside the Akeley Hall of African Mammals, and the start of our walk through the museum’s 28 meticulously detailed dioramas:

The refurbished Milstein Hall of Ocean Life:

Below, the 94-foot blue whale, under which I remember gathering with my young classmates for lunches of whale-shaped nuggets and french fries. Chicken, not fish, nuggets — though I suppose the latter wouldn’t necessarily make more sense… since as any fifth grader can tell you: whales are mammals.

These days, the area beneath the iconic life-size fiberglass model is fitted with benches for screening films. And on some nights, lucky 8-12 years olds set up sleeping bags on the floor here, as part of the AMNH’s sleepover program, which was reinstated last year after a two-decade hiatus in response to the renewed interest generated by the otherwise unredeemable 2006 film, A Night at the Museum.

The adjacent Hall of Biodiversity, which opened in 1998, features my favorite diorama in the museum: the walk-through Dzanga-Sangha Rainforest. We spent a few minutes there, but with time running short — we even had to skip the popular Saurischian dinosaur hall — there was time for just a peek inside the Planetarium.

Every longtime couple seems to have a sweet story of how they met, though most of the time the reality, like life, is slightly imperfect. At AP and SH’s home later that night for a cocktail fundraiser to benefit the Sunnyside CSA — yes, Sunnyside again! — I was reminded once more of the importance of having people in our lives who have known us through the years. In addition to providing considerable comforts and joys, they serve as a collective memory bank… and keep us honest in front of others and with ourselves.

Happy Earth Day!

The events are organized around the Society’s French Founding Father exhibit: “Lafayette’s Return to Washington’s America” on view through August 10, 2008 to mark the 250th birthday of Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier (better known as the Marquis de Lafayette). The exhibit focuses on Lafayette’s 13-month journey through all 24 states that then formed the United States, which began in 1824 at Castle Clinton in The Battery. (Similar commemorations were scheduled in France.)

Tonight’s cakes and hot chocolate were from Soutine on West 70th Street, one of my favorite bakeries in the neighborhood. (And while we’re on the subject, Levain Bakery on West 74th Street makes a mean cookie.) In addition to the sweets was a program in the Auditorium featuring internationally acclaimed soprano Juliana Janes-Yaffé, who performed songs by French and American (New York) composers. Yaffé, who is on the faculty of Mannes College at The New School for Music, sang a program of Charles Ives, Elliott Carter, Gabriel Fauré, Francis Poulenc, Lee Hoiby and Richard Hundley (who was in attendance this evening). Tony Bellomy, pianist for Brooklyn’s Encompass New Opera Theatre, accompanied the singer and performed a solo of Claude Debussy’s lovely “Rêverie.”

Upstairs, the New-York Historical Society reading room:

After the musical program, there was little time to explore the other exhibits, though I did catch one final glimpse of “Here Is New York: Remembering 9/11,” which closed on April 13. The exhibit drew from “here is new york,” a tribute to the victims of 9/11 by professional and amateur photographers, which became an international exhibition and inspired a BBC documentary. The New-York Historical Society’s exhibit consisted of 1500 inkjet-printed photos — I recognized my home and office blocks in several — mounted simply with binder clips on wires strung throughout two stark white galleries. The photos, without credits, titles or dates, were culled from 790 contributors and formed an overwhelming mosaic of the shock, horror and daze of that dark time.

Yes, folks love these cupcakes like McAdams loves Gosling. (And vice versa.) In a city full of cupcakes, though, I do feel that Magnolia’s have been hyped disproportionately to their quality. (Everyone’s got an opinion on where else to find the best.) Still, when the line isn’t an hour long, a hit of bomb frosting may be just the thing.

Especially when it’s got a cute sugar Easter bunny sitting atop. Awww!

Flickr preview: play ball! Photos from Game 2 of the Mets’ home opening series against the Phillies (April 9, 2008)

Perhaps it was a shock to the vegetarian system, but my stomach felt… well, not-so-great after eating all that meat. Maybe psychosomatic, but maybe not. (Good thing I didn’t enact my original “Easter porterhouse” plan. ) Looking then to ease into my regular diet, by evening, I was back to eating fish.

B and I ended up at Amber Asian Bistro — an offshoot of a well-liked UES Asian fusion restaurant that recently opened in the old Aegean Restaurant space on the corner of Columbus and 70th Street. The place has been swanked up a bit since its neighborhood Greek restaurant days with the addition of a lounge area, back bar, lots of dark wood and a hip lighting scheme. Judging from the crowds, Amber is off to a solidly popular start, giving Tenzan some healthy competition.

Wasabi Shumai — mushy, and a bit of a miss for me:

There were a couple of intriguing-sounding “Amber Style Ceviches” on the menu, one of which touted an “e.v.o.o lemon-lime dressing.” Yes, it actually said “e.v.o.o.”; I could not order it on principle.

I was satisfied with my rolls, but most notable was the nigiri: the pieces of fish were fresh and prettily presented, but disconcertingly big… bigger even than the oversized “American-style” slabs at Yama. I’ll be interested to hear what the sushi purists will have to say about this one.

We lost one member of our party long the way, but the hardy four that made it to JD’s birthday celebration were rewarded with a spirited party among Kiwis and medical researchers, and slices of astoundingly decadent birthday cake.

David Glass’s aptly named “Ultimate Chocolate Truffle Cake” truly is like a giant bourbon-infused truffle in cake form: richly dense, it manages to pack in more dark chocolate flavor per bite than just about anything I’ve ever tasted. Locally, the cake is available at Zabar’s — by the slice, too — but for non-locals, the Bloomfield, CT factory ships nationwide. Fine Living named it among the ten best desserts available by mail order.

There’s also an “Incredible Delicious All-Natural Reduced Fat Chocolate Truffle Cake” with 77% less fat than the original version… but tonight’s was not that cake. A slim, fat-packed wedge was all we could manage before the swift, but strange cab ride home.

Just as it had at its former Park Avenue South location, Pinch offers thin pies in four-inch widths, sold by length in four-inch increments, with choice of toppings. Personally I couldn’t say how their product stacks up against the offerings in a city full of superlative pizza, though they did seem to have a following. (Incidentally, Arthur Avenue’s Zero Otto Nove, which we visited a couple of weeks ago, was just named best in the Bronx by New York magazine.) The joining of these two cheese and carb forces is a coup, though, and last month’s opening of the Pinch & S’MAC joint venture, minutes’ walk from the Amsterdam Avenue frat bar scene, was met with considerable anticipation.

S’MAC offers variations on the cheesy pasta classic: from the “All American” (American and Cheddar – add seasoned ground beef to make it a “Cheeseburger” or sauced chicken pieces for the “Buffalo Chicken”) to more complicated, gourmet versions like the “Parisienne” (Brie, Figs, Roasted Shiitake Mushrooms and Fresh Rosemary) and the “Masala” (Cheddar and American cheeses, Tomatoes, Ginger, Onions, Cilantro, Cumin & Indian Spices.) Alternatively, you can pick any combination of offered toppings to customize your own dish. The elbow macaroni is served in cast-iron skillets of varying sizes — Nosh, Major Munch, Mongo and Partay! – with decent crust on top, but overall a bit soupy for my tastes. Breadcrumb topping optional.

The “Napoletana” (Fresh Mozzarella, Roasted Tomatoes, Roasted Garlic and Fresh Basil) — better in theory, perhaps, than in execution:

And the classic “All American”:

To me, mac n’ cheese is one of those comfort dishes that doesn’t require a lot of tinkering, so I would be partial to S’MAC’s American and Cheddar-based versions. In 2006, The Times’s Julia Moskin went in search of the ultimate home cook’s recipe, eventually foregoing the temptation towards fancier cheeses (Swiss Gruyère, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Italian fontina and Welsh Caerphilly) in favor of two straightforward cheddar-based recipes, divided into creamy and crusty preferences.

More wordplay across the street at West Side Wine. (No milkshake reference? I guess it’s over already.) The 80th Annual Academy Awards broadcast later that night, and would become the first since 1964 that all four main acting awards were won by non-Americans. That year, “Sexy Rexy” Harrison took home the Best Actor Oscar for his career-defining role as “Henry Higgins” in George Cukor’s screen adaptation of My Fair Lady. (The classic Lerner and Loewe musical is playing this week at MoMA as part of Sir Harrison’s “Centenary Tribute.”)

French star Marion Cotillard on her Oscar win: “I’m totally overwhelmed with joy and sparkles and fireworks and everything which goes like bom-bom-bom.”

What a charming sentiment!

We both knew the drill and made sure to arrive early, queuing up for our spots in the cold outside the theatre. And it was a biting, bitter cold, too: the type that chills to the bone, and against which no amount of Starbucks skim chai latte could insulate us. By the time were given the go ahead to file inside, I was in serious need of some warming laughter.

Oliver rose to the occasion brilliantly, delivering the kind of sharp, smirking political commentary — offered in dry British tones, “with more authority than you’re used to hearing” — that makes him such a popular correspondent on The Daily Show. He proved a remarkably good sport, too: about fifteen minutes in, the AV crew lost power to the video screen on stage, requiring Oliver to backtrack and run through a rather lengthy segment of his act several times — with the exact same jokes and “spontaneous” inflection. No doubt a nightmarish scenario for any comedian, but Oliver’s chucklingly rueful gamesmanship earned him an enthusiastic round of applause at the end.

Giving full credit (or blame) to the “10-year old Indonesian boy” to whom he had outsourced his joke-writing, Oliver covered topics ranging from colonialism, how Americans view the rest of the world, the school track incident that led him to pursue a career in comedy over sports, his teary-eyed Pavlovian response to all images backed by cheesy 80s power ballads (looking at you, Divine Miss M) and, with fellow comedian Andy Zaltzman, offered a brilliantly loopy argument on how the erosion of civil freedoms is a valid homeland security strategy, as it eliminates the very thing which the terrorists find most hateful about our country, thereby making us less appealing a target.

Also, some trenchant observations about American culture, as epitomized by the existence of a market for the inflatable floating grill — a barbecuing device used for cooking inside a swimming pool. Oliver cited the ludicrousness of such an invention as definitive proof that in terms of the sheer force of consumerism, America has no peer. Take that, China!

The roots of conspicuous consumption may be traced to post-World War II-era prosperity. We — as Americans, and particularly as New Yorkers — live in a culture driven by “stuff,” where so much of our lives revolves around the acquisition of material things as markers of a certain type of success. I found this recent New York magazine piece particularly resonant: “The Upside of the Downside — Why the Recession May Restore the City We Moved Here For.”

Despite being aware of “how loaded we are, comparatively speaking, and not just loaded in that abstract compared-with-the-developing-world way… loaded compared with most of the people in this city,” I too feel the “psychic effect of living in a place that is so in thrall to money, so dominated by the monoculture of luxury that even if you’re not on the front lines, working for a hedge fund or whatever, the values encroach on your life.”

I don’t know. Maybe that MacBook Air commercial is just getting to me.

Excitement spread when word of a second Upper West Side location opening first circulated in September, and then again earlier this week, as the bakery’s Italian-imported pizza ovens fired up for the first time.

This afternoon, Grandaisy had four varieties of pizza – identical to the ones available at Sullivan Street Bakery: their pomodoro (tomato sauce, olive oil and sea salt), cavolfiore (cauliflower, Gruyère cheese, bread crumbs, olive oil and black pepper), patate (potato, onion, olive oil, rosemary and black pepper) and funghi (cremini mushrooms, onions, olive oil, sea salt and thyme). Not offered today: the zucchini and the pizza bianca, hand-formed slices of flatbread, dressed simply with extra virgin olive oil, coarse sea salt and rosemary.

It’s not typical New York City pizza: with the exception of the bianca (which is plain), these are small rectangles of thin, crispy flatbread, covered in high quality toppings, and served at room temperature… or given the exposure of the trays to today’s chilly outside air, just a little cooler. Nonetheless, New York magazine named their pomodoro among the “Best Square Pizza” in 2006; the Voice has lauded their potato pizza. The unconventional pizza also was named the third best in New York by Time Out – the best in Manhattan, but lagging behind Brooklyn’s Di Fara Pizza and Staten Island’s Denino’s Pizzeria & Tavern.

My funghi slice was good. Slightly soft in the center, with a dense, layer of earthy, salty mushrooms — but at $3.25 a slice, a small extravagance.

Related: this week, Serious Eats posted an informative rundown of the regional variations of pizza in the United States.

The new Magnolia Bakery space at 200 Columbus Avenue, which housed Japanese restaurant Lenge for two decades, is at least twice the size of the West Village original and will include a private party room. Steve contracted architect Mark Zeff (who designed his brother’s Red Cat and Mermaid Inn restaurants) for the gut renovation.

The bakery, already widely known for its pastel swirl-topped cupcakes, became explosively, unbearably popular after a 2000 appearance on Sex and the City. Magnolia launched a crop of copycats around town, incited vicious cupcake wars, and inspired Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell to rap poetic about their “bomb frostings.” On fair weather days, the lines wrapped along West 11th Street have been known to stretch over an hour long; I’d observe again that New Yorkers are nuts, but I don’t know how many of the people waiting on line for those — let’s be honest, aside from that vanilla “buttercream” icing: pretty average — cupcakes are actual New Yorkers.

Abrams plans for the new location to get back to its original roots of a neighborhood bakery, opening at 7AM and offering breakfast goods in addition to the bakery’s flagship items. Due to demand, cupcakes have taken over almost the entire bulk of production downtown. (In 2003, Magnolia’s then-owner Alyssa Torrey claimed that it took in over $40,000 a week from cupcakes alone. How else to afford the $400,000-per-year lease at the uptown location?) Also, sugar addicts can rejoice that the strict dozen cupcake limit will be lifted for the Upper West Side.

Although the official launch was not to take place until Monday, January 21, Magnolia Bakery UWS was doing brisk business this Saturday afternoon as word of the stealth, early opening quickly spread.