West Side Story on Sydney Harbour review: like falling in love for the first time

Francesca Zambello’s production was just as stylish in its first run, and revival choreographer Kiira Schmidt Carper’s translation of Jerome Robbins’ balletic, beautiful shapes, like then, filled the enormous stage as an exaltation of movement.

Nina Korbe as Maria and Billy Bourchier as Tony: ‘They can’t stop reaching for each other’s arms as though it’s a wonder the other exists.’ Photograph: Keith Saunders/Opera AustraliaLater in 2019, Opera Australia staged a second, indoor production of the musical, cast more thoughtfully but with less directorial clarity.

What remains is Romeo and Juliet, the story on which the musical is based: the pure message of hope from the first time we fell in love, and the ways we change when the world crashes in and makes us grow up a little too old, and a little too hard, too fast.

Photograph: Keith Saunders/Opera AustraliaThe Jets, led by gung-ho Riff (Patrick Whitbread, heartbreakingly puppyish), feel like children; they play at violence until it transforms into something deadly.

Photograph: Keith Saunders/Opera AustraliaYes, the book is still silly, some of its jokes and jabs still dated enough you wish they would be cut; they can be hurtful for audience members to hear, especially when they’re not in service to the greater story.

This massive outdoor event can’t always balance heart and spectacle; Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour always includes a round of fireworks and when they happen at the close of the song America, it feels like a grim celebration of American imperialism.