Comments
GELFAND’S WORLD - The L.A. Opera is doing West Side Story. There is no need to summarize the plot or who the characters are. You already know. Everybody’s seen the movie and some of us have also seen it as the musical on the stage. We all know about the doomed relationship between Tony and Maria. So is it worth it to see it once again, this time on a big operatic stage and staged by an opera company?
Emphatically Yes is the answer.
(Note: The last two performances are this weekend at the Music Center.)
There is something about live performance done right that makes it more emotionally powerful than film and television. And I say this as a film fan. I will qualify the above comment by suggesting that, when done right, film comedy beats stage comedy. It may also be that melodrama can work equally well on stage or the screen, but for tragedy set to music, there’s nothing like the opera stage or its Broadway equivalent.
All this having been said, I have to say that West Side Story is different in multiple ways from the more traditional operas. There is this: It is possible to do an opera without having much in the way of hummable tunes. West Side Story, on the other hand, is almost nothing but hummable tunes interspersed with spoken dialog. There isn’t much in the musical portion that wouldn’t be considered an all-time classic. Here are a few of those songs:
Maria
Tonight
There’s a place for us (admittedly lifted from the Beethoven piano concerto)
I like to be in America
I feel pretty
Something’s coming
For a list of the songs along with a bit of technical analysis, see the summary by Maddy Shaw Roberts.
A couple of minimal observations about the plot. First of all, authors and critics feel that it is somehow necessary to point out that West Side Story is a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. Obviously there are some parallels: There are young lovers who come from opposing factions, and at least one of them dies. In Romeo and Juliet, they both die by their own hand. West Side Story diverges significantly from this plot line. One of the two dies, but it is by an act of revenge by a different person. And of course in West Side Story, Maria survives. In fact she survives well enough to deliver a powerful lecture against the indiscriminate fighting – and now murder – that has betrayed her neighborhood, a final moment which, I think, shocked much of the audience.
My second observation is that of the two gangs – the Puerto Rican group called the Sharks and the white group called the Jets. The Jets haven’t aged all that well as a concept since this piece was written back in the 1950s. Let’s consider. In West Side Story, the Jets are a street gang who have been unopposed in their territory, but now they are faced with a bit of competition because Puerto Ricans are moving into the neighborhood. These outsiders are trying to defend their own interests, and so have created their group, the Sharks. In the staged dialog, members of the Jets make clear that they feel threatened by this non-Wasp presence. Thus they are reacting, and their internal dialogue involves planning to purge their block of the outsiders by violence.
At the intermission, in conversation with the people sitting next to me, I suggested that the Jets come across like Trump voters. They actually reminded me of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville who became famous for chanting “Jews will not replace us.” At this level, the Jets are the embodiment of white nationalism. In the 1950s, this was not only the accepted viewpoint for many Americans, it would have taken a lot (at that time) to question the very existence of this viewpoint. What’s interesting is that the spoken words and written lyrics are almost unconscious of the racism demonstrated by the Jets (and even by one police officer). The theme, instead, seems to be a screed against juvenile delinquents and against these delinquents taking their violence up to the level of lethality. The author and composer were aware of their underlying radicalism in opposing the prevailing racism of the time, but chose a slightly more subtle approach to make their point.
But no author or composer has to solve all the world’s ills in one plot line. It is enough that West Side Story is musically wonderful and a total tearjerker of a tragedy, and that on this night, the house was full of people simultaneously overwhelmed emotionally and still jumping to their feet to cheer the cast.
One wry note. In this production, there are scenes in Maria’s bedroom. On the wall is a poster for the current Puerto Rican pop star Bad Bunny, and this production by accident was played during the same week that Trump administration officials are still protesting that Bad Bunny has been chosen to do the Super Bowl halftime show.
Duke Kim (from Seoul, S. Korea) was terrific as Tony. He even has a certain physical resemblance to the guy who played the Tony role in the movie. Gabriella Reyes (from Connecticut) as Maria had a marvelous voice. Critics will notice that she does not have the slender beauty of Natalie Wood (who played Maria in the movie) but opera goers are used to directors choosing vocal strength over cinematic looks.
And then there was the orchestra and the conducting by James Conlon. I haven’t seen a lot of Broadway type of conducting from Conlon, but he has a real flare for this kind of music.
Now here’s the thing. When we got Tony and Maria and the whole orchestra together in a duet, magic happened. All of a sudden, things came to life at the hair-rising-on-the-back-of-your-neck level. It may be show tunes, but they are among the best, put together by a master. When presented by the orchestra and the proper voices, good things happened.
And one final word about the dance numbers. As critics of the first performances pointed out, the dance numbers are an integral part of the show. You might say that they provide connections and are used to reveal the characters’ thoughts and attitudes. The dance number done by the Shark Girls to the song “I like to be in America” brought down the house. The Jet Girls held their own during the Dance at the Gym scene and in subsequent moments. A late second act ballet scene was particularly moving.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
