From 15 to 23 December (ten performances, three of which are out of subscription) Teatro Lirico di Cagliari presents West Side Story , the famous two-act musical by Leonard Bernstein that the brilliant American artist composed between 1953 and 1956. The subject, as is well known, it is an “actualization” of the equally famous Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare: it tells the story of the rivalry between two gangs of young people (Puerto Ricans and whites) in New York in the 1950s and the love between Tony (white) and Maria (Puerto Rican), in an atmosphere of intolerance and racial hatred which, between unbridled dances and the complicity of a sophisticated soundtrack, will lead to the final tragedy (Tony's death) which will however sanction the peace and friendship between the two bands of young people.

The staging proposed in Cagliari comes from three major US musical institutions: the Lyric Opera of Chicago , the Houston Grand Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival . The direction will be entrusted to the Italian-American Francesca Zambello who returns to Cagliari after the great success of 2017, in Marco Tutino's Ciociara , while the choreographies, taken from the original production of 1957, are by Jerome Robbins . The singing company comes entirely from the United States, as does the conducting.