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Francesca Zambello On Directing Opera Australia's West Side Story

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On March 22, Opera Australia will once again premiere its annual Handa Opera on Sydney Harbor, an outdoor opera spectacular set against the backdrop of one of the world's most beautiful harbors.

A highlight of Australia's cultural calendar, the annual production—now in its seventh year—attracts more than 330,000 local and international attendees. Every year, a massive stage is custom-built for the production; in recent years, for a production of Verdi's Aida, the open-air stage played home to a 59-foot-tall Nefertiti head, real camels, a live orchestra and a cast of over 90 people.

 This year, Opera Australia is putting on West Side Story, one of the world's best-loved musicals. The new production will bring New York's grimy streets to Sydney's harbor setting, complete with graffiti-covered cars and a replica of the Statue of Liberty. I spoke to the production's director, Francesca Zambello, who has worked in both theater and opera.

Opera Australia

West Side Story is suddenly everywhere—in addition to Handa Opera on the Harbor, there’s a new Broadway production later this year, and Spielberg is doing his film version. What is it about WSS that seems to speak to our current moment?

Shakespeare said it pretty well when he wrote: “Two households, both alike in dignity...” Thus begins Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, in which we see “ancient grudge break to new mutiny.” When Arthur Laurents first conceived a modern, musical version of the play, he imagined a rivalry between Catholic and Jewish communities on the Lower East Side; only later did he and his collaborators move the story uptown, pitting a gang of native New Yorkers against those more recently arrived.

Although America and Australia are countries of immigrants, we continue to struggle with issues around immigration and migration, which makes West Side Story an important tale for today. (As Sondheim’s lyric neatly puts it, “Nobody knows in America / Puerto Rico’s in America.”)

The creators of West Side Story, although well-intentioned, didn’t get everything right; later critics have pointed out lapses into stereotypes. (This is true in so many “period pieces” that we put on the stage today, and as always, I look forward to the opportunity to engage in a dialogue about some of the thorny issues presented by the piece, both with my colleagues and with our audience members.)

Lapses aside, by putting the tragic cost of gang warfare center stage, the authors made an important statement about the human tendency to organize ourselves into factions. Especially with the rise of social media, we have all become more tribal in our outlook. I think the story of two warring “tribes” challenges all of us to look at how we define and marginalize “the other.” Perhaps we find it easy to engage with people of different cultural backgrounds. But what about differences in education? religion? resources? politics?

Leonard Bernstein scrawled “an out and out plea for racial tolerance” across the first page of his copy of Romeo and Juliet. As we approach this piece in 2019, in the midst of a world refugee crisis, I hope we can make that plea reverberate in a new way. I also hope we can challenge ourselves to think broadly about ways in which we arbitrarily dismiss the experiences and opinions of those who are not like us.

Speaking of those other productions—both the new Broadway music and Spielberg’s film are using new choreography. You guys are sticking with Jerome Robbins’ original choreography. Was there talk of trying something different, or was this always the plan? Why do you think the choreography—which is more than 50 years old now—can still speak to audiences?

I have directed the piece several times and always with new choreography. This time as it was the centennial of Bernstein’s birth and also Jerome Robbins, I thought it important for audiences to experience this extraordinary collaboration. We have worked with the estate so they understand we are not just re-creating the work, but placing it in a more contemporary context. They were in full support and also one feels the timelessness of Robbins’s coming out in this setting. Also, one senses how the music was written to this choreography for much of the show.

Opera Australia

WSS feels like such a uniquely New York story. Tell me a little bit about the design and staging of this show. I’m particularly interested in the elements you’ll be using to help transport audiences to that time and place—which seems much harder to do outside, against the backdrop of Sydney Harbor than it would inside a theater.

You can never make the harbor go away, so let’s just celebrate it with the fireworks! With the designers, we have chosen to focus on iconic images of New York to create an evocative environment. It is not literal, but suggestive of the urban jungle but using large structures of classic NYC things like the subway or the stature of liberty.

Would you say this is the trickiest and most challenging environment you’ve been asked to direct in?

Nooooo, I have worked on many epic-scaled venues and they are exciting. Outside is a special atmosphere for performers and audiences alike. I love embracing it. The trickiest ever was an aquarium!

On the same lines, what’s the one thing you can do in this environment that you can’t do in an indoor theater?

I think when audiences are outdoors it takes on a much more communal feeling. Even though you are farther from the performer there is an incredible connection through the air.

Finally, what is your personal relationship with WSS, and how does it speak to you? Do you have a particular memory associated closely with a production of WSS that you can talk about?

Like so many others, I am a descendant of Italians and a New Yorker, so I passionately feel this story in my blood!

West Side Story runs March 22 to April 21, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.