Steven Spielberg called him the most intimidating film in his career. Stephen Sondheim said that his own words had made him cringe. When we talk about West Side Story – Among the most durable stadium and screen properties of all time – there is rarely a shortage of fear or debate.
La La Opera – not particularly known for adaptations of Broadway or Hollywood – is about to put its own ambitious stamp on this masterpiece, which was initially designed by the Grand Jerome Robbins of Broadway as Modern (1950) Romeo and Juliet.
Interest in the show, stung by hundreds of Wss The banners agitated in Los Angeles since June, I prompted Lao to add additional performance before anyone heard a note. The show opens on Saturday at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, where it will take place for the next four weekends.
“I wanted to create something that an opera could give it, that other mediums could not,” said director Francesca Zambello, who calls for this current production “suggesting a historical period, but with a contemporary cinematographic sensation”.
In an evening which is closely at the original Broadway of 1957, Tony and Maria always fall for each other at first glance while the sharks and the jets are at war.
The famous partition of Leonard Bernstein, with words from a 25 -year -old Sondheim (working on his first show), understands the classics “Somewhere”, “Tonight”, “Maria” and “Something that comes”. Sondheim’s least favorite was “I Feel Pretty”, a song he called inauthentic.
The frontal look of the program on racism, immigration, firearms and gangs was revolutionary in its time. Now, it’s apparently more relevant than ever.
“Who would have imagined when [playwright Arthur Laurents] written this [dialogue] 70 years ago, would that still speak to us now, and in an even more amplified voice? According to Zambello.
Production includes a mixture of opera and theater voice; a larger than typical distribution of dancers and actors; Big game kicks; “And up to 50 musicians in the pit,” adds Zambello, who is artistic director of the Washington National Opera in DC
She first traced an opera version of the opera of West Side Story In a 2018 collaboration with the Houston Grand Opera and the CoopStown Glimmerglass Festival, New York.
To reproduce each stage of the emblematic choreography of Robbins, she was joined in Los Angeles last week twice the candidate of Tony and the choreographer at the Emmy Emmy Joshua Bergasse (NBC’s Smash). The dance being even the slightest “off” was not an option.
“It’s emblematic in the same way as music,” says Zambello. “And music was written around this choreography.”
Particular attention was also paid to recovery defects in the original work, just as Spielberg did in its cinematographic adaptation in 2021. This includes casting only Latin actors in roles where the original language of a character is Spanish. Many performers are Angelenos, others by Mexico and Central America.
While Zambello put the casting in rehearsal last week, she did not seem to be intimidated by the spectrum of the 1961 film oscaritar at all or the version of Spielberg (seven nominations, a victory). Or even Hollywood can look.
“You respect the work of your colleagues,” she said about many West Side Story iterations over the years. “But everyone follows their own way.”
Although director Rian Johnson joined the opera board of directors last year and the former chef Sherry Lansing studio is a life administrator, the Lao has rarely focused on adapting the familiar properties of Hollywood and Broadway, even if other leading opera companies have extended in this direction.
Director Gregory Nava (Selena, the North) and the former producer-director of DreamWorks Tim Johnson (Antz, how to train your dragon: return home) are also members of the Lao Board of Directors.
But La La opera launches its 40th season with a Broadway base food, rather than saying Boheme (It will come later, closer to Thanksgiving), was not the result of experience in demographic expansion.
The show was rather at the top of the longtime maestro wishes list of the Opera James Conlon – a score that he was determined to reach before retiring this spring after a 20 -year race.
“This can be surprising for someone whose work is most closely associated with Wagner, Puccini and Mozart,” said Chris Koelsch, CEO of the company, about Conlon. “I knew West Side Story had a special resonance for him. We have had a conversation during 20 years on this subject. »»
Maestro James Conlon carried out this week during a rehearsal for “West Side Story”.
With the kind authorization of the Opera
Raised in Queens, Conlon grew up at the time of the Broadway Classic and in its very part, attending the schools of the West Side in New York.
Classic musician and a graduate of the Juilliard School, he asked questions from friends wondering his detour of Broadway: “They said:” It is not an opera – or do you make an opera? “My answer is” no, we do nothing “. This is one of the most perfect works ever created.”
Like many in the arts, he notes that the equipment continues because it comes from the “most miraculous quartet” ever assembled for a single show – Bernstein, Sondheim, Laurents and Robbins, which also achieved. “They have created this sustainable masterpiece which, I do not think, will never be dated,” he said.
At first, Bernstein had scribbled his hope for the project at the top of his copy of a Romeo and Juliet Script: “A plea for racial tolerance”.
Conlon quotes the work of Bernstein here as among the richest parts of the composer – which have moved transparently among the films, the Awakens of Broadway and the Symphonic Orchestras, including the time when Bernstein was the leader of the New York Philharmonic. (See Biopic 2023 by Bradley Cooper Maestro to find out more.)
Like Bernstein, Robbins was also a rarity that was effortless between the fine arts and pop culture – as tangled with the New York City Ballet as it was with Broadway classics such as Gypsy, roof violinist, Peter Pan And a dozen others.
“It is definitely an honor to transmit his work,” said Bergasse about classic numbers such as “cool”, “dance at the gymnasium”, “prologue” and “America”.
Although it is impatient of precision, the choreographer says that he “always discovers what is best for a particular cast. Everyone has different skills, and you want to use it. It is therefore the act of balancing, to be as faithful to Robbins as possible while maintaining the distribution with which you work. ”
Although La La La Opera has not revealed plans for new theatrical excursions, Koelsch says that it is impatient to assess the reactions of the public this weekend. “This idea of restoring the original scale and glory on certain parts rests fairly comfortably inside the opera, because that is what we do,” he says.
The fight against perceptions according to which the opera is elitist or only occurs “in this large temple on Grand Avenue and is not for everyone” is also in the lead.
“The opera project is the democratization of access to art form,” he said, adding that tuxedo and athlete clothing can be seated as a goal as the non -profit organization – with a budget of $ 30 million this year – has increased.
Turning to Broadway is not out of the table. Sondheim Sweeney Todd,, The sound of music, the miserable And several programs sung by Andrew Lloyd Webber have all received the radiance of opera from various companies from around the world and are on the radar of others, explains Zambello.
“But West Side Story, ” She says, “is in the subconscious of everyone who works in American theater.
