The musical West Side Story , a masterpiece by Leonard Bernstein, arrives in Sardinia for the first time.
The debut , at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari, is scheduled for Thursday 15 December at 20.30 (round A). This is the seventh and final appointment of the 2022 opera and ballet season and will be staged for ten performances , three of which are non-subscription.
West Side Story, composed between 1953 and 1956 by the brilliant American artist, was performed for the first time on August 19, 1957 at the National Theater in Washington to enormous success with audiences and critics. The subject is an "updating" of the equally famous Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet : it tells the story of the rivalry between two gangs of young people in New York in the fifties of the last century and of the love between Tony and Maria, in an atmosphere of intolerance and of racial hatred which, between unbridled dances and with the complicity of a sophisticated soundtrack, leads to a final tragedy which establishes peace and friendship between the two gangs.
The staging proposed in Cagliari comes from three major US musical institutions: the Lyric Opera of Chicago , the Houston Grand Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival. The direction and choreography , taken from the original 1957 production, are by Jerome Robbins , while the original production is by the Italian-American Francesca Zambello who returns to Cagliari after the great success, in 2017, of Marco Tutino's Ciociara.
The singing company comes from the United States. Among the main performers: Andres Acosta (Tony), Teresa Castillo (Maria), Amanda Castro (Anita), Brett Thiele (Riff), Waldemar Quiñones-Villanueva (Bernardo). The Orchestra of the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari is conducted by James Lowe. The opera, lasting approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes including the intermission , is performed in the original language but performed with the aid of Italian surtitles. – L'unione Sarda
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