Dance June 2020
“West Side Story” without Robbins
On the new production by Ivo van Hove and Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker.
In the summer of 1957, before the new musical West Side Story headed to Washington, D.C., for a pre-Broadway tryout, it was given a run-though in New York City for theater insiders. Burton Bernstein, the younger brother of Leonard Bernstein, the composer of West Side Story’s music, saw the preview and in a letter to Leonard’s wife, Felicia, assessed the show. He told her it was going to be “a large hit and [live] up to our highest expectations.” He then wrote, “The strange thing (something I’ve never experienced before) is that B. Lennuhhtt comes off as second best: the show actually is a monster ballet (a jot repetitious in spots) where no one is actually directed but choreographed instead.” B. Lennuhhtt was a nickname for his brother Leonard.
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