Fri 3/17 @ 7:30PM
Sat 3/18 @ 8PM
Sun 3/19 @ 3PM
One of the most beloved Broadway musicals of all time is West Side Story, who songs are familiar even to many of the most casual fans of the genre: “Maria,” “Somewhere,” America,” “Something’s Coming,” Tonight,” “I Feel Pretty.” The music was written by the great Leonard Bernstein; the lyrics were the first effort by a young Stephen Sondheim. The story, of course, is based on Romeo and Juliet, telling the story of the rivalry between two gangs, one white, one Puerto Rican, and the doomed relationship of a couple who fall in love across these lines.
The 1957 Broadway musical was made into a 1961 film starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star-crossed lovers. (Neither sang in the film; both were dubbed.) There was also a 2021 remake that seems to have sunk without a trace, but it’s the 1961 film that that Cleveland Orchestra will be showing on a big screen when it plays the Bernstein music at the Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Hall. Brett Mitchell conducts.
Get tickets here.