Russian levity is a far cry from the sass of the Big Apple. The idea of Bernstein’s terminally dizzy, intermittently heartfelt, never satisfactorily finalized Candide—musical comedy? operetta?—at the Bolshoi may strike some as a stretch too far. That said, let’s remember the cosmopolitanism of the show’s Old Lady, the one with the one buttock (long story). “I was not born in sunny Hispania,” she sings. “My father came from Rovno Gubernya. But now I’m here, I’m dancing a tango: Di dee di! Dee di dee di! I am easily assimilated. I am so easily assimilated.” That’s the spirit. —M.G.