West Side Story at Komische Oper Berlin

Driving rhythms and hauntingly beautiful songs make Leonard Bernstein’s version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet one of the most moving works of musical theatre in the 20th century. The subject of the piece is prejudice, fear, hatred – and hope that somewhere, somehow, some time, things could be different.

Two rival gangs who are fundamentally no different from each other. And yet for certain young people who have nothing more to lose except their reputation, belonging to one of these gangs is the sole justification for existence. So when a boy and girl dare to ignore the bitterly defended lines of demarcation between gangs, this means more than a little scrap. Because by doing so they are questioning the social order, and they can’t get away with that…

Originally West Side Story was to be called East Side Story, and the intention was to deal with the conflict between Jews and Catholics in New York. It was South American rhythms which inspired Bernstein to such an extent that he shifted the fundamentally universal action at the last minute to the west – and changed the title. Songs like America, Maria and Somewhere have long been regarded as classics, while regretfully the themes remain applicable in all times.