The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra closes its 2025–26 season Saturday, Apr 18 with what music director Julian Kuerti calls "the biggest, most ambitious stage work" of his tenure — a fully staged production of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story at Miller Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Nearly a year in the making, Kuerti tells Cara Lieurance that the production came together from several converging impulses: the KSO's tradition of presenting a large stage work every two years, the compelling richness of Bernstein's score, and a desire to mark America's 250th anniversary. "All of these arrows just all started pointing in the same direction towards Bernstein's West Side Story," he says, "which is not exactly an opera, but I think it's a little bit more than a musical."
Playing Maria is acclaimed soprano Cecilia Violetta López, whose career spans major operatic stages across North America. López traces her musical roots to the fields of Idaho, where her mother taught her to sing mariachi music. She discovered opera while studying at UNLV and has been singing it professionally ever since. She describes West Side Story's title role as deceptively demanding: "Having that really solid knowledge of vocal technique, I think, is really the foundation of being able to sing Maria successfully because if you don't have that extension to the high register to really support it, it becomes problematic."
López reunites with tenor Andrew Bidlack, who plays Tony and with whom she first performed at Florida Grand Opera in 2017. Kuerti notes the chemistry was a happy accident: "We didn't know when we hired you and Andrew that you knew each other. We had no idea. This was just a complete fluke, but it worked so well on stage."
The production features a set evoking New York back alleys and fire escapes, costumes, a choreographer and scenic director both from New York, a chorus drawn largely from local talent, and more than 50 musicians in the pit — including a rare bass saxophone. Kuerti also announces that Amy Williams, currently of the Savannah Philharmonic, joins the KSO as its new CEO in late May.
Tickets remain available at kalamazoosymphony.com.
The interview was summarized by Claude AI and edited by the author.
