If a classic is defined as “that which achieves a lasting reputation for quality and relevance,” then West Side Story is classic in the best and worst ways. With giants like Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and a young Stephen Sondheim, quality is never in doubt. Sadly, with themes of racism and street crime, neither is its relevance.
“When I was a kid, hearing the Jets hurl all that negativity toward Latinos, I learned a lot of slurs. It had a big impact on me,” soprano Gabriella Reyes tells Observer about seeing the movie for the first time. The daughter of immigrants, she’s singing Maria in LA Opera’s season opener through Oct. 12. “I heard it again in school and amongst people I thought were friends. And also seeing it in the immigrant communities, the fear of being sent back, since I was a kid. It’s amazing to me that it has not gone away. It has escalated.”
Making her LA Opera debut, Reyes is familiar to New York fans from the Met’s 2024-2025 season as Margarita Xirgu in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar. She also sang both Mimì and Musetta in Franco Zeffirelli’s production of La Bohème.
‘Tony’ to her ‘Maria’ is tenor Duke Kim, who brought the house down last season as Romeo in LA Opera’s production of Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet.
“Pieces like this are very important, ‘cause we show the struggle, the hate but also the love humans can have,” Kim says of West Side Story. “We pose the question—which one can I choose? It’s up to you. And I think it’s even more important nowadays to ask these questions.”
Partnered for the first time, Reyes and Kim are under the direction of the great Francesca Zambello who, by her own count, is directing West Side Story for the 12th time, including productions at the Bregenz Festival on Lake Constance and an outdoor show overlooking the harbor in Sydney, Australia. In the U.S., she helmed productions at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival, all three of which are co-producers on the show.
“The young people, it’s making them understand the incredibly horrific situation of the story, which gets more horrible every day, the unbelievable treatment of immigrants and undocumented workers,” says Zambello about the roughly 1,900 detained in LA ICE raids since last spring, most of whom have no criminal record. “It’s amazing they wrote this seventy years ago. Everything in it is amplified today. It’s very important to me, everyone who’s a Shark is Latino. Many of the kids in this cast are the children of immigrants, and it’s really interesting, hearing each of their individual stories.”
Conductor James Conlon leads a full orchestra, with Robbins Estate-approved and Emmy Award-winning choreographer Joshua Bergasse handling the dancers. The song order follows the original production and not the classic film version, with Officer Krupke and I Feel Pretty both positioned later in the show. Reyes and Kim are the only two opera singers in the cast, with musical theater performers filling out the rest. The unusual mix prompted Zambello to mike them all.
“It gives us the opportunity to face one another,” says Reyes about being miked, an uncommon practice in the opera world since it surrenders control of the voice to the sound mixer. “From an acting sense, it helps me lock deeper into the character instead of having to cheat out all the time. We’re able to be intimate, and everyone will hear that, which is different in opera.”
For Kim, the problem is sound compression. “Even with the great technology we have today, it can’t really capture all the overtones. Even if you sing louder or softer, there’s a range. So, it doesn’t go beyond the range.”
Bernstein simultaneously composed Candide and West Side Story, with both intended as operas, but quickly settled on musical theater for the latter. Kim finds the tessitura (vocal range) a bit low for a tenor, and Reyes finds Maria’s quite broad, requiring her to strike a balance between emotion and technique. “We think musical theater should be easy. But it’s really not. There are a couple of floated high A-flats. The high C that’s sustained for five bars, I have to work up my stamina to hold that at the end of the quintet.”
Tony’s screaming and crying in the second act puts Kim’s vocal cords to a cruel test. “My throat is a little scratchy,” he notes. “When we’re having back-to-back shows, evening and matinee, I’m wondering how I will feel. I’m learning to deal with that challenge right now, to deliver something real but also have it not hurt my throat.”
Reyes, the first Nicaraguan-American to sing at the Met, believes every Latino singer should perform in Spanish at least once, citing the tradition of storytelling through song and dance common in the culture. It’s partly why she jumped at the chance to sing Rosalba in Lyric Opera’s Florencia en el Amazonas (with Maestra Zambello), as well as the Met’s Ainadamar, set during the Spanish Civil War.
“Stepping into this role, the point of view of an immigrant who has only been in this country about a month, who wants change and falls in love with an unexpected man, society needs to see these stories, that love transcends these walls and boundaries we’ve set for years based off tribalism, based off racism. Love can overcome that,” she says. “In this city, in particular, with how devastating it’s been to the Latin-American community, I hope it’s a lesson and reminder of what love can do if we actually choose it.”
LA Opera’s West Side Story is playing through October 12, 2025. Get tickets here.
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