A Classic Returns to the Lyric

West Side Story

The Lyric Opera of Chicago is reviving West Side Story, last staged by them in 2019 at the Civic Opera House. I’m going to spoil the rest of the review by simply stating you should definitely get a ticket before the show closes on June 25th.

It would be cliché to praise Bernstein’s score and Robbins’ choreography, though I’m going to do it anyway. The music, brought to life by the orchestra conducted by James Lowe, and the choreography, recreated by Joshua Bergasse, is truly astonishing, but it is more than a show of talent. Watching this production, you realize that in making the music so beautiful and grand and the movement so physical and intense, the show does something that many productions of Romeo and Juliet and its offspring fail to do: take the teenagers in this story seriously. Teenagers feel everything more intensely and more completely because they are experiencing those feelings for the first time. In high school, every interaction felt life or death, and the indifference or mocking of an adult only underscores that they ‘just don’t understand.’ We jaded adults know that Tony and Maria, outside of this tragedy, would likely fall out of love as quickly and completely as they fell in love, and it’s easy to dismiss them on that basis. But the heightened music and dance match the intensity of their feelings and meets them on their own terms. So it’s not that just that the music and dancing is pretty, though they are. It’s that in letting yourself be pulled along by them, you remember for an evening what it was like to fall in love at first sight and when the fire escape outside your bedroom window was literally the whole world.

Because this story is so heightened, anything less than a perfect production is going to fall flat. Fortunately, the Lyric’s production is a showcase of some of the most incredible talent I have ever seen. Making their Lyric debuts are Ryan McCartan and Kanisha Marie Feliciano as Tony and Maria. Both are truly phenomenal singers, soaring above the orchestra effortlessly. McCartan’s performance of “Maria” in particular stayed with me, both for its technical beauty, but in just repeating her name over and over, I got the real sense of a boy trying to express an emotion bigger than his ability to verbalize. Stephen Sondheim, in later years, was hard on himself about his lyrics for this show, and I’ll admit there are several places where the lyrics don’t quite match the character singing them in the way he would later become famous for writing. However, there’s a sweet simplicity throughout the show that the singers absolutely tap into, and those moments were absolutely enchanting.

I don’t think I need to sell you on West Side Story. It’s in the canon for a reason, and there’s a reason it’s still performed and adapted almost seventy years later. The critiques over the years about representation, authenticity, and appropriation are valid, but there’s a reason the show has undergone revisions to address those critiques, rather than fade into history. It’s that good a show. So rather than sell you on the show, let me sell you on this production. Every single element, individually and collectively, is positively the best you are going to see doing this gorgeous material.

Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Kevin Curran

Presented June 2 – June 25 by the Lyric Opera of Chicago at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago.

Tickets are available in person at the box office, by calling 312-827-5600 or by visiting www.lyricopera.org.

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found at www.theatreinchicago.com.