West Side Story

Presented by STS EVENEMENTS (L-3-022-009859).

West Side Story Distribution:

Orchestre Appassionato

Mathieu Herzog, conductor

Anthony Despras, choreography

Neïma Naouri, vocals

Synopsis:

True to its desire to build bridges between aesthetics and encourage exchange, La Seine Musicale continues this season to offer original creations, at the crossroads of genres and artistic disciplines: music, dance, improvisation, poetry...

Inspired by Shakespeare's poignant story of Romeo and Juliet, which Bernstein and Sondheim transpose to the working-class, multi-ethnic New York of the 1950s, West Side Story is a musical that blends jazz, classical music, and Latin American influences. With feverish intensity, the love story of Maria and Tony, from two rival gangs (the Sharks and the Jets), clashes with gang warfare. Mathieu Herzog and the Orchestre Appassionato draw inspiration from this score, steeped in lyricism and punctuated by rhythmic explosions! Its hit melodies intensely convey the tensions, hopes, and dramas of the characters. Finger snaps, syncopated and frantic rhythms reminiscent of mambo and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, operatic lyricism and jazzy melodrama... Bernstein's score is a concentrate of music and America with communicative energy. A masterpiece that Anthony Despras revisits in an electric choreography worthy of Broadway. The dancers powerfully embody the conflicts between the clans, through a gesture that is both raw and precise, blending urban energy and contemporary writing. Carried by a rare vocal intensity, singer Neïma Naouri joins the stage and infuses this musical fresco with an additional dimension, where raw emotion meets a deeply captivating interpretative power. A modern version of the myth, a true ode to an America born of métissage that shatters musical boundaries for our greatest pleasure.