A timeless love story; an electrifying spectacle. New York City, 1950s.Jets versus Sharks. Two rival gangs fight for control ofthe Upper West Side. Against the backdrop of violence, two teenagers fallin love. Loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story became acultural phenomenon. Leonard Bernsteins score was a defining moment in musical theatre and its sensational songs " America, Maria, Tonight, Somewhere " still thrill more than 60 years after the workspremiere.
It has a strong personal resonance, too, for period performance pioneer Sir John Eliot Gardiner, for whom Bernstein was aformative influence early in his career.
He conducts an augmented Broadway theatre scoring as Bernstein originally intended, with a young, hand-picked cast from Scotland and America and special guest instrumentalists drawn from theworlds of jazz and musical theatre. Puerto Rican-American soprano Sophia Burgos takes the role of Maria, with lyric tenor Alek Shrader as Tony for two very special performances ofthis ground-breaking, irresistibly foot tappingwork.
In [the score], there is the drive, the bounce, the restlessness and the sweetness of our town. It takes up the American musical idiom where it was left when George Gershwin died. It is fascinatingly tricky and melodically beguiling, and it marks the progression of an admirable composer.
New York Daily News, 1957
Based on a Conception of Jerome Robbins
Book by Arthur Laurents
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Entire Original Production Directed and Choreographed byJerome Robbins
Scottish Chamber Orchestra
Sir John Eliot GardinerConductor
Alek Shrader Tony
Sophia Burgos Maria
Andrea Baker Anita
Carmen Ruby Floyd Rosalia / A Girl
This concert performance is presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International Europe
