• 0 Overture - Orchestra

Act One

• 2.0 Life is Happiness Indeed - Candide, Cunegonde, Maximillian, Paquette
• 3.5 The Best of All Possible Worlds - Pangloss, Candide, Cunegonde, Maximillian, Paquette
• 5.0 Oh, Happy We - Candide, Cunegonde
• 6.0 It Must Be So (Candide's First Meditation) - Candide
• 1.0 Westphalia Chorale - Chorus
• 9.0 Dear Boy - Pangloss, Chorus
• 10.3 Auto-da-fé - Judges, Inquisitors, Chorus
• 8.5 This World (Candide's Lament) - Candide
• 11.0 Paris Waltz Scene - Orchestra
• 12.0 Glitter and Be Gay - Cunegonde
• 13.0 You Were Dead, You Know - Candide, Cunegonde
• 24.9 Barcarolle - Orchestra
• 14.0 I Am Easily Assimilated - The Old Lady, Chorus
• 15.5 Quartet Finale - Candide, Cunegonde, The Old Lady, Captain

Act Two

• -----Entr'acte - Orchestra
• 16.0 My Love (Governor's Serenade) - Governor, Maximillian
• 17.0 We Are Women (Polka) - The Old Lady, Cunegonde
• 18.5 Alleluia - Chorus
• 19.0 Quiet - The Old Lady, Cunegonde, Governor
• ----- Sheep's Song - Sheep
• 21.0 Ballad of Eldorado - Candide, Chorus
• 23.0 Bon Voyage (Hornpipe) - Vanderdendur, Chorus
• 26.0 What's the Use? - The Old Lady, Ragotski, Prefect, Crook
• 13.1 You Were Dead, You Know (Reprise) - Candide, Cunegonde
• 24.9 Barcarolle (Reprise) - Orchestra
• 29.0 Make Our Garden Grow (Finale) - Candide, Cunegonde, Company

As the stage narrator explains, the evening's entertainment is based on Voltaire's famed novella and concerns four pupils of the idealistic tutor Dr. Pangloss, who teaches that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."  We are in 18th-century Westphalia at the schloss of Baron Thunder-Ten-Tronck, and the children are Cunegonde, the pretty daughter of the Baron; the Baron's son, Maximilian; Paquette, a saucy servant girl; and our wide-eyed hero, Candide, the Baron's bastard nephew.

Candide and Cunegonde fall in love, but once their feelings are discovered, he is banished.  Exiled from paradise, with only his optimism to cling to, he is soon railroaded into joining the invading Bulgarian Army.  When Candide finally returns to the besieged schloss Thunder-Ten-Tronck, he finds everyone apparently massacred; thus begin his worldly wanderings.

In Lisbon, he and Dr. Pangloss, who has resurfaced as a syphilitic beggar, face death in the Spanish Inquisition.  Then they go on to Paris, where the forlorn lover is reunited with Cunegonde, now the mistress of a wealthy Jew, Don Issachar, and the equally rich Archbishop.

When Candide kills Cunegonde's lovers, the couple must flee.  Joined by her companion/chaperone, The Old Lady, they escape to Cádiz, Spain and then to Montevideo in the New World.

Act Two

In Montevideo, South America, the couple is forced to separate again.  Cunegonde is taken under the protection of the Governor, who promises to wed her.

Candide, on the run again, finds himself in the jungles of South America, where he is reunited with Paquette and Maximilian.  When Candide apparently kills Maximilian, he and Paquette must continue wandering.  They are rewarded when they arrive in the wealthy land of Eldorado, where they find enough gold to resume their travels and Candide's quest to locate Cunegonde.