The 2015 Budapest Premiere of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story promises to be an exciting undertaking. The familiar hits from the now classic musical, which reworks Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in its own – now also bygone – era, will resonate from the stage of the Erkel Theatre. The antagonism between immigrants and "natives" and warfare between street gangs are, sadly, not problems unknown in our own time, either. Bernstein's music, Sondheim's libretto and not least of all, Péter Novák's direction, which combines operatic voices with elements of dance theatre, will make for a powerful opening to the 2015/16 Shakespeare season.