January 23 – 28, 2024
Theater Hall, Lugano Art and Culture (LAC)
Lugano, Switzerland
Leonard BERNSTEIN: West Side Story
Grant Sturiale, conductor; Lonny Price director; Jerome Robbins, concept and original choreography; Leonard Bernstein, composer; Arthur Laurents, librettists; Stephen Sondheim, scripts. Cast: Protagonisti: Daniel Fullerton (Tony), Melanie Sierra (Maria), Milan Magaña (Anita), Anthony Sanchez (Bernardo), Taylor Harley (Riff). Adulti: Darren Matthias (Doc), Bret Tuomi (Lt. Schrank), Erik Gratton (Officer Krupke), Stuart Dowling (Glad Hand). Jets: Anthony Gasbarre (Action), Ryan Cyr (A-Rab), Calvin Ticknor-Swanson (Baby John), Liam Johnson (Snowboy), Ashton Lambert (Big Deal), Marek Zurowski (Diesel), Gigi Hausman (Anybodys), Anna Gassett (Graziella), Nicole Lewandowski (Minnie), Victoria Biro (Velma), Kaitlin Niewoehner (Clarice). Sharks: Christopher Alvarado (Chino), Alessandro Lopez (Pepe), Michael Bishop (Luis), Justin Lopez (Anxious), Matt Villanueva (Moose), Gerardo Esparza (Nibbles), Michel Vasquez (Rosalia), Deanna Cudjoe (Consuelo), Gianna Annesi (Teresita), Majo Rivero (Francisca), Veronica Quezada (Margarita). Swings: Sonya Hernandez, Gabi Simmons, Daniel Di Pinto. Creative: Julio Monge, choreographer; Anna Louizos, sets; Alejo Vietti, costumes; Fabrice Kebour, lights; Tom Marshall, sound. Production: BB Promotion GmbH, Sundance Productions Inc. NY. Tour organized by Live Arts mgmt. Presented in collaboration with LuganoMusica.
Giorgio Koukl | 24 JAN 2024
The city of Lugano, Switzerland, decided to start its 2024 concert season with some popular musicals and was lucky enough to get an excellent touring company coming from New York, USA, with one of the most known musicals ever: West Side Story.
This original Lonny Price production, using the Jerome Robbins choreography, with some slight reduction of the orchestra: 20 musicians (versus the 31 prescribed by the Leonard Bernstein score) and a cast of 34 performers, promised to be a solid quality show, very different from the far too many touring companies which deliver only a pale version of an original show as it can be seen in the world capitals.
This modern remake of Shakespeare’s drama Romeo and Juliet is a haunting story of love, hatred, and ethnic tensions between different groups, which may be a reason for its unbroken popularity right from its beginning.
The tormented history of years before its official Broadway release in 1957 is well known and documented. It certainly speaks of Leonard Bernstein’s unbroken will to create this music despite all the voices that considered it too dark, too complicated, and the music itself too distant from what the public would have liked at that moment.
West Side Story touring company, 2022, (credit: Johan Persson)
Despite all these Cassandra voices, the score is a perfect mix of typically “American” rhythm, with a touch of Puerto Rico, which is more than justified, some beautiful lyrical passages, entering like an ear-worm into one’s head and a certain theatrical sense of proportions which only a few composers truly possess. This theatrical sense is the key to all successful musicals, where the music is not absolute in the Wagnerian sense but tends to describe, complete, and underline the scenic drama.
It would be an excellent essay to depart from Peri and Caccini with their first Italian operas, or even before with the music written to depict the biblical passions to be represented during Easter times, going slowly through the various Verdi, Wagner, Lehar, Strauss until reaching Lloyd Webber, Hammerstein, and all the others. There surely is a common sense of theater and its rhythms, a thing in which Leonard Bernstein definitely is able to reach great heights.
But let us move to the Lugano show, the first of a series of five.
Grant Sturiale is the conductor and the creative mind powering all this intricate combination of sound, dancing, lights, and logistics, a touring company that started in December 2022 in Munich, Germany, and has since been nearly continuously touring in Europe and Asia. His fame as a specialist in musical theater is well deserved; he is definitely a precise and capable conductor with total control of any rhythmical intricacy.
One can feel only sorry for him getting a group of only some 20 musicians to create some magic out of a score that, in its extreme version, would require a full symphonic orchestra. So, the listeners had to endure the sound of an electronic keyboard instead of a piano and a celesta. The percussion group of eleven players, so crucial in the original score, was reduced to only two. Very good players indeed, but seeing all their jumps to reach just another instrument in time was heartbreaking. Understandably, a touring company can only travel with a limited number of people. Still, at times, magic with sound post-production and a not-fully-mastered mix with the singers on stage were quite disturbing.
West Side Story, touring company, 2022. (credit: Johan Persson)
We had the pleasure to have all the main characters sung by their official singers as listed on the program. Young people, some of them on their first great world tour, with all the energy necessary to sing, act, and dance for more than two hours every single evening for years. Well, nobody was deceived about the performers’ abilities; in fact, they were so captivating that the audience literally exploded with enthusiasm, and the performers garnered all their sympathy.
The two main characters were Maria, sung by Melanie Sierra, with a beautiful voice, great acting qualities, and last but not least, capable of nearly acrobatic dancing technique. Tony, sung by Daniel Fullerton, with a maybe a little less impressive tenor voice but with extraordinary physical abilities in dance and acting. Both were more than satisfactory.
The secondary characters like Anita, Bernardo, and Riff were fully integrated into the ensemble, with perfect voices for a musical and great acting abilities. The minimalist revolving elements of the stage, the overall light handling, and the scenic tempi chosen were perfectly fit to please the public, even if imagining such a production on a bigger stage with a full cast would certainly be more powerful.
West Side Story is, since its Shakespearian origin, a perfect theatrical “materia prima” that will please the public in whatever form it is presented. This Lugano performance certainly had nothing to be ashamed of. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Lugano Arte e Cultura: luganolac.ch
Read more by Giorgio Koukl.
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