This was a grand gala evening equal to the importance of the event. For forty years the L.A. Opera has been producing performances and enriching the cultural fabric of Los Angeles while exploring exciting and new derivations of the Art form. This show was one such extrapolation. The audience was elegant and ready after having participated in a meet & greet on the plaza proper. It would seem that the choice of West Side Story (WSS) was tailor-made for such an auspicious occasion. I still think it could have been with more careful direction and an eye towards the differences inherent between Musical Theater and Opera. Unfortunately, that carefulness and that eye were not present in the staging I witnessed.
There are a multitude of subtle and not-so-subtle challenges in presenting this West Side Story in this particular political climate. I will attempt to cover as many as occurred to me during this production. The various discrepancies inherent in the show added up to a strange hybrid of stylization mixed with too much suspension-of-disbelief, then a literal shot of realism to top it all off.
“West Side Story” – Photo by Karli Cadel.
A great deal is made of this production being the original directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins. So much is true. However, Robbins did not direct and choreograph for an opera stage the size of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. I am sure there would have been considerations taken into account if he had. Broadway theaters are much closer and intimate in size. This makes all the difference in a work as emotionally volatile as WSS. The choreography was fantastic and intricate and helped propel the story along as it was meant to do. I am sure Joshua Bergasse did his best at authenticity. Unfortunately, a great deal of the detail and punch of the movement was swallowed by the immense space of the theater. This was particularly obvious in “America” where six women were dancing fantastic choreography in an airplane hangar and rendered diminutive by the scale of the backdrop and scenery. The ever-present neon “Hotel” sign pulled focus. Another element adding to the choreography looking slightly odd was the use of frontlight with very few specials or downspots. Usually, lighting can contain a small area where the action takes place that is important to see. But here large areas of the stage were lit without anything happening in them and this served to reduce the focus on the areas where the actual dancing was taking place. “America” suffered from this as did the “Quintet”. The section where it worked best was the “Dance at the Gym” where everyone was present and utilizing the whole available space.
“West Side Story” – Photo by Todd Rosenberg.
Let me say that the set was formidable and imposing. It was also magnificent and harsh. Stage left was a large building frame of an abandoned hotel with that massive sign lit, while stage right had an imposing three-story apartment building framework. Part of it rolled out to reveal Maria’s bedroom. (Oddly, the wallpaper in Maria’s bedroom was all peeling off of the walls making us think she was living in squalor, even though she had a beautiful new dress for the dance) Upstage center was an empty space reserved for the moving in and out of set pieces such as the fences for the rumble and the balloons and festive wall for the dance at the gym. Consequently, there was no use of the upstage area other than set traffic. When the dancers were moving downstage there was a huge negative space upstage unused but lit. Someone thought it important for us to see the set and its dimensions without considering what that perspective would do to the performers in the foreground. It made them small. The lighting designer was Mark McCulluogh and the revival lighting designer was A.J. Guban. I have no idea why, between them both, they failed to notice this effect.
“West Side Story” – Photo by Todd Rosenberg.
This was an Opera and as such had its focus on the voices, or at least the lead voices. These were fantastically represented by Gabriella Reyes as ‘Maria’ and Duke Kim as ‘Tony’. Both were excellent. P. Tucker Worley delivered an excellent Riff. Daniella Castoria was also very good as Rosalia. There was an odd discrepancy in the sound. Program notes state that “…seven additional violinists and one additional bassist” was added to the orchestra. I sat in the orchestra section of the audience and at times it was difficult to hear the nuances of the score underneath the voices singing. There were moments and even whole songs where Reyes vocals overpowered her partners, “A boy like that/I have a love” and sometimes the entire cast in the “Quintet”. I could not hear Amanda Castro’s voice as Anita at all. This was unfortunate and unexpected in a theater of such consequence. I know that the audio capabilities are there, I know that the lighting possibilities are there, so what happened? I was sitting next to a professional musician and at intermission he asked me what I thought? I said the music seemed a bit muted and he agreed adding that it seemed diffuse to him as well.
“West Side Story” – Photo by Todd Rosenberg.
The Director’s notes in the program by Francesca Zambello mention why this show is so important to do now, in this political climate. She states that only by feeling the horror of racism and misogyny of the Jets towards Anita and the rest of the Sharks can we, as the audience “begin to think about change”. Is that true? Then why are we still performing this work 68 years after its premiere and not only has the racism and misogyny not changed but has actually gotten worse! Now we have ICE Agents pulling Maria’s Father out of his apartment and hustling him onto a plane headed to a concentration camp-like prison out of the country without a trial? It is as if the Jets have all grown up and not changed at all but gotten worse and are unapologetically acting on their inherent hate and racism in today’s news. When Chino shoots Tony with his handgun, it is almost quaint when compared to the damage done with an AK-47 or AR-15 and multiple rounds. When Maria says, “I can kill now, because I hate now.” It may be a transformation for her but for the rest of us living in the real world we know all too well that hate is not a prerequisite for a shooting spree. The perpetrators of today do not even know those they kill. They are disturbed individuals who just want to act out. They are organized and methodical. They do not “hate”. This environment of shootings in schools and malls and yes, theaters, separates us from a gang shooting between Chino and Tony by an emotional chasm. We do realize that this is a tale of Romeo and Juliet, and yet to mount it today is to make a statement that has many different aspects and connotations in todays’ society. Some of those connotations are trite. Some of the movement was stylized in order not to be too graphic. A great deal of it was rendered sanitized and did not have the intended impact. One example is Doc’s slap of Tony in the Diner. I suppose if I was sitting on audience right it may have read as a slap. I was audience left and Tom Virtue as “Doc” was a full three feet away from Tony when he swung his arm and we see Kim clap his own hands to make the sound. I find this the most amateurish schtick when exposed so terribly. What is this, Vaudeville?! At the end scene when everyone comes on after Tony is shot and Maria has her last monologue, Eric Badiqué and Eric Patrick Harper enter as Officer Krupke and Lt. Schrank, respectively. They handcuff Chino and walk him offstage and completely ignore the dead body onstage and all the people around it. This is a very strange omission of protocol in their two characters. This is their beat, ostensibly their neighborhood and people they have known for a long time. This is a very small detail I know, but at that apotheosis in the story when all of the characters come onstage to witness the death of Tony, to have both Krupke and Lt. Schrank walk off and leave Tony’s dead body is an unfathomable dereliction of duty. At least one of them should have stayed until lights out.
“West Side Story” – Photo by Todd.
It was all of these tiny little discrepancies put together that made the show odd and off at the same time. The singing and music was all there but the sound was off, the choreography was all there, but the set and lighting countered its impact. The acting was there but it was sanitized so that we were aware of a story being presented to us with some awkwardness instead of being enveloped by the story. Obviously, a great deal of money was spent on this production and it is a shame that money spent does not necessarily equal a great show.
West Side Story runs through October 12, 2025 at the Music Center’s Dorothy Pavilion. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit their website.
Written by Brian Fretté for LA Dance Chronicle.
Featured image: “West Side Story” – Photo by Karli Cadel.
