West Side Story
by Leonard Bernstein

The Camerata - Friends of Music Orchestra and its artistic director, George Petrou, present the most famous musical in the history of Broadway in a new and spectacular production.

Based on Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's immortal tale of tragic love, West Side Story shifts the action to the present day with unforgettable music from one of the 20th century’s most significant musical figures, Leonard Bernstein. This classic work was a huge success when it premièred on Broadway in 1957, and would become a worldwide hit when the film of the musical won 10 Oscars in 1961.

With vocal parts that place almost operatic demands on the singers and choreography of rare beauty, West Side Story as performed by the Camerata is scored for a 35-piece orchestra and a cast of 30 distinguished singers, dancers and actors. The orchestration is the authentic version from 1957 with the improvements Bernstein made during the legendary recording sessions with Kiri Te Kanawa and José Carreras for Deutsche Gramophone.

The author Arthur Laurents and the lyricist Stephen Sondheim transferred Shakespeare’s plot to New York and focused on the animosity between two rival gangs: the American Jets and the Puerto Rican Sharks. It is against the backdrop of this rivalry, which veers between teenage acting out and situations stemming from the main sociological issues of the day (racism, intolerance, immigration), that love blossoms between Maria, who is Puerto Rican, and Tony, who is American. The musical’s humorous episodes and dance music, with its powerful doses of jazz and Latin, do not deflect the work from its core orientation: above all else, West Side Story is one of the most moving tales of love ever written for the musical stage.