If the LA Times is your principle source of cultural information you might have missed the fact LA Opera is opening its fortieth season with an exuberant production of West Side Story based on the original Jerome Robbins production. Coverage didn’t happen for over a week. Despite that it took so long for the Times to devote attention to a review, and then only online, the audience on September 27, was full and thoroughly engaged. (This review was submitted prior to the
Times finally posting Mark Swed’s review on October 1, 9 days after the opening.)
Conductor and music director James Conlon nostalgically recalls growing up with the LP of West Side Story, it was the soundtrack of his youth, playing in the background until it was worn out. I recall West Side Story being my first LP and wearing out both the record and the carpet in my bedroom dancing to Bernstein’s compelling rhythms. Sitting still with it is still a challenge, but a delightful challenge. Westside Story brought together three of America’s twentieth century theatrical geniuses, composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricist Stephen Sondheim, and choreographer Jerome Robbins. Robbins also directed the first iteration. Through the years there have been alterations, but the current production hews closely to Robbins’ original.
From its beginning in 1957 there has been debate. Is it just a Broadway musical or is it an opera? I have it on reliable authority from a good friend of Leonard Bernstein’s, he considered it an opera. James Conlon, the consummate operatic conductor, chose it to open his final season with LA Opera. Just as the waltz was the popular music of the 19th century but is now part of the classical cannon, jazz is the underpinning of American music of the 20th and well deserves to be treated seriously. I would argue that West Side Story provides the complete operatic experience– glorious music, a story that takes little effort to apply onto the stress of the modern world, a set that conjures the feelings of a time and place, and choreography that envelopes the audience in feeling. Let us put aside the ‘is it opera?’ squabble and take it in as full theatrical immersion.
Unquestionably the choreography and execution by the dance troop are a high light. Robbins’ modern choreography swept the country and feels as fresh today as it did when it opened. Under the direction of Joshua Bergasse the ensemble performs at a level rarely seen on the opera stage. Where the libretto was perhaps above the level of the dancers a backstage chorus filled in unobtrusively.
Of course West Side Story is a modern iteration of Romeo and Juliet. Tony (Duke Kim) is the modern Romeo, member of the white jets. And Maria (Gabriella Reyes) is Juliet, sister of Puerto Rican Shark member Bernardo. Mr. Kim sang Romeo in last season’s LA Opera Romeo and Juliet. Their voices are operatic and magnificent, even if some chemistry between them is lacking. Most of the other cast members have a Broadway background. The LA Opera Orchestra under James Conlon gives a rich performance supporting dancers as well as singers.
Recently Broadway has reprised a number of musicals from the fifties and sixties. Few have the integrity and depth of West Side Story and even fewer have the relevance. Kudos to LA Opera for putting on a fully produced version. Two and a half hours pass quickly in the company of Bernstein and Robbins.
Karen Weinstein
