West Side Story
It’s a timeless tale of love at first sight.
Two teenagers are drawn together across a crowded dance floor, believing love can conquer all, including differing backgrounds, languages, warring gangs, and miscommunication. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story has captivated audiences since its debut in 1957. Our version is in keeping with the original vision of Broadway legends Bernstein, Sondheim and Robbins.
“Tonight, tonight, I’ll see my love tonight.
And for us, stars will stop where they are.”
A co-production of The Glimmerglass Festival, Houston Grand Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago
Performed in English with English subtitles
Choose a date to buy tickets
Mangia!
All Performances: Pre-show fine dining
$53 for Sat, Tues, Fri dinner
$42.40 for Sun brunch
Opera’s Night Out
Friday, November 9: Young professionals enjoy a pre-show cocktail hour + ticket to the show
$40 for Under 40
Student Rush Tickets
All Performances: Students with ID may purchase discount tickets two hours in advance at the Cobb Energy Centre
$25 – 35 per seat
Groups
All Performances: Save up to 25%
For groups of 10 or more
Contact: groups@atlantaopera.org
Get the Feeling
Photos by Lynn Lane
Approximate runtime: 2 hours 20 minutes
Synopsis
Based on a conception of Jerome Robbins
Book: Arthur Laurents
Music: Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Original production directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Premiere Date: September 26, 1957
Prologue
The opening is a carefully choreographed, half-danced/half-mimed ballet of sorts. It shows the growing tensions between the Sharks, a Puerto Rican gang, and the Jets, a gang made up of “American” boys. An incident between the Jets and Shark leader, Bernardo, escalates into an all out fight between the two gangs. Officers Schrank and Krupke arrive to break up the fight.
Act One
Detective Schrank, the senior cop on the beat, tries to get the Jets to tell him which Puerto Ricans are starting trouble in the neighborhood, as he claims he is on their side. The Jets, however, are not stool pigeons and won’t tell him anything. Frustrated, Schrank threatens to beat the crap out of the Jets unless they make nice. When the police leave, the Jets bemoan the Sharks coming onto their turf. They decide that they need to have one big rumble to settle the matter once and for all – even if winning requires fighting with knives and guns. Riff plans to have a war council with Bernardo to decide on weapons. Action wants to be his second, but Riff says that Tony is always his second. The other boys complain that Tony hasn’t been around for a month, but Riff doesn’t care; once you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet for life (“Jet Song”).
Riff goes to see Tony, who is now working at Doc’s drugstore. Riff presses him to come to the school dance for the war council, but Tony resists; he’s lost the thrill of being a Jet. He explains that, every night for a month, he’s had a strange feeling that something important is just around the corner. Nevertheless, Riff convinces Tony to come to the dance. Riff leaves Tony to wonder about this strange feeling that he’s been having (“Something’s Coming”).
In a bridal shop, Anita remakes Maria’s communion dress into a party dress. They are both Puerto Rican. Anita is knowing, sexual and sharp. Maria is excited, enthusiastic and childlike, but also growing into an adult. Maria complains that the dress is too young-looking, but Anita explains that Bernardo, her boyfriend and Maria’s brother, made her promise not to make the dress too short. It turns out that the dress is for the dance, which Maria is attending with Chino, whom she is expected to marry, despite the fact that she does not have any feelings for him.
At the dance in the local gym, the group is divided: Jets and their girls on one side and Sharks and their girls on the othe. Riff and his lieutenants move to challenge Bernardo and his lieutenants, but they are interrupted by Glad Hand, the chaperone who is overseeing the dance, and Officer Krupke. The two initiate some dances to get the kids to dance together, across the gang lines. In the promenade leading up to the dance, though, the girls and boys end up facing each other at random, Jet girls across from Shark boys and vice versa. Bernardo reaches across the Jet girl in front of him to take Anita’s hand, and Riff does the same with his girlfriend, Velma. Everyone dances with their own group as Tony enters (“Mambo”). During the dance, Maria and Tony spot each other. There is an instant connection. Bernardo interrupts them, telling Tony to stay away from his sister and asking Chino to take her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet at Doc’s in half an hour for the war council. As everyone else disappears, Tony is overcome with the feeling of having met the most beautiful girl ever (“Maria”).
Characters & Cast
Maria
Sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, who falls for Tony
Vanessa Becerra
Soprano Vanessa Becerra is a recent graduate of the Domingo-Colburn Stein Young Artist Program at LA Opera, and has been hailed for her “vibrant presence” and “lilting radiance” (Opera Today).
Anita
Sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, who falls for Tony
Amanda Castro
Actor and dancer Amanda Castro is a graduate of California Institute of the Arts. She has danced with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Limon Dance Company, and recently finished In the Heights at Geva Theater (Rochester, NY).
Tony
Former member of the Jets who falls for Maria
Andrew Bidlack
Featured in Opera News as one of the ‘top 25 brilliant young artists,’ tenor Andrew Bidlack makes his Atlanta Opera debut as Tony.
Riff
Leader of the Jets
Bernardo
Leader of the Sharks
DJ Petrosino
DJ Petrosino makes his Atlanta Opera debut as Bernardo. He recently performed the role with Houston Grand Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, and Lyric Opera of Kansas City.
Newbie Guide
The Opera Experience
Operas on our mainstage are grand theatrical experiences. You can always expect the unexpected, and for our productions to be presented at the highest quality.
Supertitles
Many operas are in a foreign language. Supertitles are similar to subtitles in a film, except they are projected above the stage. These translations will help you follow what’s happening on stage.
What to Wear
There is no dress code at The Opera and you will see everything from jeans to evening gowns and formal suits. Most people use it as a chance to enjoy dressing up in their own style.
Arriving in Good Time
If you are late, you will be escorted to the nearest late seating area. At intermission ushers will show you to your seat. Plan ahead to arrive with extra time.
Enhance Your Visit
Pre-Performance Talk
Learn about the history of the opera, the composer, and more from artists and opera aficionados. One hour prior to curtain. Free with your ticket!
Familiarizing Yourself with the Story
Because of the foreign languages, classical music, and often complex plots, you will very likely enjoy the performance better if you spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with the story and characters in advance. Some people even like to listen to the music in advance and others prefer to let it wash over them during the show and perhaps look it up afterwards.
How is an Opera Staged?
Auditions
Actors first audition for roles up to a year in advance, or for more experienced artists, directors also invite them to play a role.
Rehearsals
Most of the rehearsals are held in our rehearsal hall, and not the actual theatre. The conductor begins orchestra rehearsals about a week and half before opening night. They have four rehearsals with the conductor, and then the singers are added into the mix.
Sets & Costumes
The Atlanta Opera Costume Shop alters the costumes to fit our singers. Sometimes they do have to make costumes if there aren’t enough, or if there is nothing that fits, etc. Once the sets are in place, the cast begins rehearsing at the theatre. The Opera production staff works with staff at the theatre to get all of the lighting and technical aspects of the production together.
Sitzprobe & Dress Rehearsal
The orchestra comes together with the singers in a special rehearsal called sitzprobe. There are no costumes during the sitzprobe, this is mainly to hear the voices with the orchestra. There is a piano dress rehearsal, when the singers rehearse in full costume for the first time so they can get used to wearing them. Finally, all of the pieces are put together for two full dress rehearsals leading up to opening night.
Composer
Leonard Bernstein
(1918-1990)
Few composers capture their time and become the iconic voice of their age. Leonard Bernstein found his “voice” in the early 1940s and projected the sound of urban and urbane America from the period of World War II to the anti-war movements of the 1970s and the restoration of freedom in Europe, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet communism.
Writing for small ensembles, symphony orchestras, Broadway, film and opera houses, Leonard Bernstein projected a simple message of understanding and hope employing both complex and simple forms and styles – yet always sounding like “Bernstein,” a voice best known in his score to West Side Story.
Exploring his output, one finds the famous and obscure — works that both are reflective of their times and somehow also preserve and encapsulate them. Everywhere one hears his internal struggle to sound inevitable as the tumultuous era of the second half of the 20th century unfolded itself. He is as once linked with the music of Benjamin Britten and Dimitri Shostakovich, as well as George Gershwin and Aaron Copland.
While his music finds its spiritual home in his world view, his music speaks with a New York accent, even though he was born in Massachusetts. His love affair with Europe and his sensitivity to his Russian and Jewish roots are never far from his lyrical expressivity, with its fragile sense of optimism, its loneliness, its humor and its demand for acceptance. All of this is wrapped in the rhythmic propulsion of a great American urban landscape. He has left us an aural image of his time and place and, at the same time, an eternal voice of humanity.
By John Mauceri
Librettist
Stephen Sondheim
(1930-)
American composer Stephen Sondheim was born on March 22, 1930, in New York City. After early practice at songwriting, his knowledge of musical theater was influenced by master lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, who served as a mentor. Sondheim’s contributions to West Side Story and Gypsy in the 1950s brought him recognition as a rising star of Broadway. Known for the startling complexity of his lyricism and music, his major works for the theater also include A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park With George and Into the Woods.
His parents, Herbert and Janet (née Fox) Sondheim, worked in New York’s garment industry; his father was a dress manufacturer and his mother was a designer. They divorced in 1942 and Sondheim moved to Doylestown, Pennsylvania with his mother. He began studying piano and organ at a young age, and he was already practicing songwriting as a student at the George School.
In Pennsylvania, Sondheim became friends with the son of Broadway lyricist and producer Oscar Hammerstein II, who gave the young Sondheim advice and tutelage in musical theater, and served as a surrogate father during a time of tumult. In his teens, Sondheim had penned a satire about his school, the musical By George!, which he thought his mentor would love and thus asked for feedback. Hammerstein in fact thought the project needed tons of work and offered honest criticism, which Sondheim would later see as invaluable. Sondheim also worked as an assistant on 1947’s Allegro, one of Hammerstein’s theater collaborations with composer Richard Rodgers, with the experience having long-lasting implications on the young composer’s approach to his work.
Sondheim attended Williams College, where he majored in music. After graduating from the school in 1950, he studied further with avant-garde composer Milton Babbitt and moved to New York City.
Conductor
David Neely
In 2012 Opera News wrote, “The happy news of David Neely’s appointment as Des Moines Metro Opera’s first-ever music director portends some exciting operatic growth at Des Moines in years to come.” Since then, Neely has elevated the company’s musical profile with acclaimed performances of a wide range of repertoire such as Turandot, Billy Budd, Manon, Falstaff, Elektra, Peter Grimes, Dead Man Walking, Macbeth, Don Giovanni, and La Fanciulla del West. Neely’s recent performances of Turandot and Britten’s epic masterwork Billy Budd garnered high praise in major publications Opera News in the Chicago Tribune, and Neely’s televised Manon, produced by Iowa Public Television for DMMO, was awarded an Emmy by the Upper Midwest Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Neely is equally at home in concert and opera settings. Internationally, he has appeared as a conductor with the Bochumer Symphoniker, Dortmunder Philharmoniker, the Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg, and numerous European opera houses including Bonn, Halle, Dortmund, and St. Gallen. In the United States, he has appeared for concerts and opera at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, and Sarasota Opera, where he has led numerous productions including their American Classics series of 20th-century operas. He has collaborated with such soloists as Joshua Roman, Bella Hristova, Benjamin Beilman, Rainer Honeck, Nicholas Daniel, Delfeayo Marsalis, Phillippe Cuper, Ben Lulich, and Ricardo Morales. Neely has conducted the German premiere of Mark Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie, the North American premiere of Robert Orledge’s reconstruction of Debussy’s The Fall of the House of Usher, and recently, world premieres of Arthur Gottschalk’s Four New Brothers, Billy Childs’ Concerto for Horn and Strings, and Alexandre Rydin’s Clarinet Concerto.
Director
Francesca Zambello
An internationally recognized director of opera and theater, Francesca Zambello’s American debut took place at the Houston Grand Opera with a production of Fidelio in 1984. She debuted in Europe at Teatro la Fenice in Venice with Beatrice di Tenda in 1987 and has since staged new productions at major theaters and opera houses in Europe and the USA. Collaborating with outstanding artists and designers and promoting emerging talent, she takes a special interest in new music theater works, innovative productions, and in producing theater and opera for wider audiences.
Ms. Zambello has been the General Director of The Glimmerglass Festival since 2010, and the Artistic Director of The Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center since 2012. She also served as the Artistic Advisor to the San Francisco Opera from 2005-2011, and as the Artistic Director of the Skylight Theater from 1987-1992. In her current roles at the Kennedy Center and the Glimmerglass Festival she is responsible for producing 12 productions annually. She has begun major commissioning programs for new works in both companies that have resulted in productions of many large and small-scaled new works. During her tenure both companies have increased their national and international profiles.
Associate Director
Eric Sean Fogel
In the 2018-19 season, Eric’s work will be seen in Porgy and Bess, Seattle Opera; Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare Theatre Company; Marriage of Figaro, San Diego Opera; The Lion, Unicorn and Me, Kennedy Center; and Florencia en el Amazonas and The Pearl Fishers at Houston Grand Opera.
He has collaborated with Francesca Zambello and The Glimmerglass Festival for the past eight seasons and in 2019 will choreograph Showboat and Ghosts of Versailles. Eric has also created new productions for Atlantic Theatre II, Opera Bordeaux, Chicago Lyric Opera, Chicago Opera Theatre, Hawaii Opera Theatre, Lyric Opera Kansas City, Los Angeles Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Théâtre du Capitole, and Washington National Opera. Eric is on staff at the Glimmerglass Festival as the Head of Stage Movement and Choreography.
Choreographer
Julio Monge
Julio Monge is an actor, choreographer, and director. His performance credits on Broadway include On Your Feet, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, Lincoln Center’s Twelfth Night, Man of La Mancha, Fosse, Victor/Victoria, and Paul Simon’s The Capeman. Choreography works include West Side Story: The Somewhere Project, celebrating Carnegie Hall’s 125th anniversary; and Tony Kushner’s translation of Mother Courage and Her Children, starring Meryl Streep, and the musical Radiant Baby, both directed by George C. Wolfe. Other choreography credits include The Threepenny Opera at Williamstown Theater Festival, starring Betty Buckley; José Rivera’s premiere of References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot, starring Rosie Pérez; and the revival of Pablo Cabrera’s La verdadera historia de Pedro Navaja in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Directing credits include Putting Out by Laura E. Bray at New York Venus Theater Festival and Hedwig and the Angry Inch (also producer and translator) at the Gay and Lesbian Theater Festival in Puerto Rico (Best Production Award 2010). During 2018-19, he will be resetting Jerome Robbins’ original West Side Story choreography for Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, The Glimmerglass Festival, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and Lyric Opera of Chicago.
