Gustavo Dudamel is taking advantage of the free time he has left in his schedule after resigning last year from the musical direction of the Paris Opera. In his second stay in Barcelona so far this year, he has visited the Liceu again and not only to enjoy the pre-general rehearsal of El Mesías and greet his good friend Bob Wilson but to close future projects with the Teatro de la Rambla. The Liceu will host a West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein in a concert version directed by the desired Venezuelan baton and in the voices of Nadine Sierra and Juan Diego Flórez. It will be on July 29 and 31, 2025.
The American soprano and the Peruvian tenor will be the leading couple in this iconic musical about an impossible love that on this occasion will be enjoyed only musically, without the dances with which it was associated since Jerome Robbins marked a new era of the cinematographic musical with his choreographies. .
Gustavo Dudamel already directed the score for the new musical adaptation that Steven Spielberg made in 2021, providing a characteristic energy alongside what will be his orchestra from 2026, the New York Philharmonic, of which Bernstein was also the head. It was in 1957 when this musical premiered with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents, winning up to 10 Oscars for its 1961 film adaptation.
Robbins would place his actors/dancers in the open fields of Broadway that would later house the Lincoln Center with, among others, the New York City Ballet building that was ordered to be built for George Balanchine. The great Russian choreographer would call, however, Robbins to be his second in command and place him in the current of the new times.
