West Side Story - It’s Romeo and Juliet … but with a Latin beat

It’s everyone’s favourite musical, and it opens at Sydney Opera House this month. (If you didn’t see it on Sydney Harbour, here’s a second chance, and if you did, you can enjoy a different production with a talented young cast.)

West Side Story resonates with audiences both for its gritty, true-to-life storyline and its inventive music. But the now famous love story wasn’t the first idea Jerome Robbins had.

With Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents, he began dreaming up a love story between a Catholic boy and Jewish girl, but it felt stale.

When the trio saw news reports of gang violence between Puerto Rican and Anglo-American street kids, they were inspired. East Side Story became West Side Story. The rest is history.

Find out more fun facts about West Side Story.

Opera Australia https://opera.org.au/