West Side Story – Film & Original Music Performed Live

Today's Music

Sunday, 19 August 2018
6 pm, Gstaad Festival Tent

An evening in the stars with the Basel Symphonic Orchestra and one of the most famous American musicals, performed live AND projected on the giant screen in the Festival Tent in Gstaad! Transporting Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” to the upper west side of New York in the 1950’s – with two rival gangs (the Jets, made up of young Caucasian Americans, and the Sharks, made up of immigrants from Puerto Rico) and an impossible love. “West Side Story” was an immediate success upon its premiere in 1957. It was made into a film in 1961 by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, multiplying its triumph with ten Oscars. This concert also provides occasion to celebrate the centenary of one of the 20^th century’s greatest musicians: pianist, conductor, composer and “entertainer” (in the best sense of the term) Leonard Bernstein.