PNB's West Side Story Suite serves as a preview to Seattle's 2010 Bernstein festival

November 7, 10:59 AMSeattle Theater ExaminerRosemary Jones

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Pacific Northwest Ballet’s rendition of West Side Story Suite returns to the McCaw Hall this month as part of the company’s fall Director’s Choice program. In 1995, Jerome Robbins distilled his balletic choreography for the Broadway musical into a shorter (and ultimately more hopeful) retelling of the story for the New York City Ballet.

“The winning combination of choreographer Jerome Robbins and composer Leonard Bernstein captures the distinct energy of American youth,” said PNB artistic director Peter Boal, who added Suite to the company's repertoire in March. “The power of this great work resonates as much with today's audiences as it did a half century ago at its premiere.”

Pacific Northwest Ballet soloist Seth Orza (center) and company dancers play it “Cool” in Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story Suite, presented as part of PNB’s current Director's Choice program through November 15 at McCaw Hall (Seattle Center).
Photo © Angela Sterling.

Impossibly well-coordinated and well-scrubbed gang members war with the world, their legs scissoring through the air or their fingers snapping at their ankles in the iconic crouch that Robbins designed. On opening night, the gangleaders were danced by Seth Orza and Karel Cruz, the latter using his long, long arms to great advantage as he seems to blockade the entire West Side from the rival Jets in the Prologue.

No delicate ballerinas here! The women turn into flirty Puerto Rican girls who flap their frilly skirts, or tough New Yorkers flashing their legs as their boyfriends whip them over their heads in the “Dance at the Gym.” Leading the ladies is Carla Korbes as the senorita happy to be in Manhattan as she sings about the joys of immigration in Leonard Bernstein’s paean to the advantages of living in “America.”

Much has been made of this piece requiring normally silent ballet dancers to use their voices as well as their bodies. It should be noted that they are giving some musical bolstering from the pit by singers Kelsie Bahr, Melissa Plagemann, Wesley Rogers, and Christina Siemens. Rogers’ lyric tenor tones soar out over the audience in the tender meditation “Something’s Coming” while PNB principal dancer Lucien Postlewaite (Tony) proves he can embody romance and yearning as easily in this piece as he did in September’s Romeo et Juliette.

Watching Postlewaite and his partner, Sarah Ricard Orza (Maria), sway gently, sweetly, towards each other as Bernstein music swells around them, enclosing them in a bubble of first love, Robbins’ choreography finds as much expression in a moment of stillness as every finger snap and high flying kick.

Director’s Choice mixes West Suite Story Suite with three cutting-edge modern ballets: Petite Mort, Mopey, and The Seasons. More information can be found at www.pnb.org.

Bernstein Celebration This Spring

If Berstein’s score for West Side Story stirs your passions, you will have plenty of other opportunities to enjoy the composer’s works starting in March when a citywide celebration of “Lenny” takes over local stages.

“Leonard Bernstein is one of the few composers who has worked successfully and brilliantly in nearly all of the performing arts including theatre, opera, film and every manner of instrumental and vocal music,” stated 5th Avenue’s producing artistic director David Armstrong in a recent announcement of Seattle Celebrates Bernstein in 2010. “That makes him the ideal nexus for a festival that will showcase all that Seattle’s plethora of world class arts organizations have to offer.”

The 5th will be offering new productions of On the Town and Candide, while Seattle Symphony, Seattle International Film Festival, Seattle Men’s Chorus, Lake Union Civic Orchestra, Showtunes Theatre Company, and other arts groups will weave Bernstein into their productions. A full and growing list of these events can be found at seattlecelebratesbernstein.org.