Interview: Crystal Manich of WEST SIDE STORY at Opera San José Brings Her Puerto Rican Heritage to the Iconic Musical

Opera San José doesn't do things by half measures. For its first-ever musical, it is diving into the deep end of the pool with a vibrant new production of West Side Story, one of the most beloved, debated and fiendishly difficult musicals in the entire canon. Even more intriguingly, it has brought in Puerto-Rican born Crystal Manich to helm the production. Manich would seem to be the perfect person to give West Side Story a fresh take. She is one of the busiest directors in opera, and also fell in love with musical theater when she was 12 and soon became obsessed with the original film version of West Side Story, amazed to finally see her own culture depicted onscreen, albeit somewhat imperfectly.

I spoke with Manich last week from San José, while she was between rehearsals. The San Juan-based director seemed to be having a blast in tackling this iconic musical that she has loved for so long, and which played such a formative role in her own development as an artist. We took a deep dive into what the show means to her, how she plans to add authenticity to the characters while honoring the original text, what she views as some common misconceptions about the makeup of the Jets and the Sharks, and how she hopes to connect the dots to help the audience more fully experience Maria's emotional journey. In conversation, she is very matter-of-fact and easy to chat with, and it's clear that this show is currently living in her creative brain 24/7. The following has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

West Side Story is one of those works that feels so steeped in our collective cultural consciousness that it's hard to imagine a time when it was new. What was your own initial exposure to it?

My initial exposure was at the age of 12. I watched the 1961 film over and over. I loved musical theater so when I discovered West Side Story it was pretty incredible because of course it had characters who were Puerto Rican, and I didn't really see Puerto Ricans represented in a lot of cultural offerings at that time. I just was super curious about why they were there, why the story was going to unfold in the way that it did. And I discovered a New York that was sort of the 1950s nostalgic kind of approach with, you know, the romanticization of fire escapes. The first time I went to New York, which was in high school about two or three years later, I remember seeing the fire escapes and my heart started pounding. It was sort of an intro into a world that I didn't know when I was watching this movie. So that was my first introduction, and of course the original film is very much a part of my early development as an artist.

As a person of Puerto Rican heritage, what did you make of the Puerto Rican characters you saw onscreen?

You know, when I was that young I really thought that Natalie Wood was Latina. I didn't find out until afterwards, and I was heart-broken that a Latina had not been cast as Maria. But of course Rita Moreno being Puerto Rican was obviously a huge inspiration to me from that early age and she continues to be. So what I saw through my 12-year-old eyes was obviously somewhat different from the reality of the casting, but overall I really did connect to it. I did wish they had put in some more references of Puerto Rican culture, but obviously the song "America" is really fun and at that age I was very much into the idea of talking about San Juan and the beautiful nature of Puerto Rico.

Thinking back on the various productions of West Side Story I've seen over the years, the Jets have basically been all white or at least very light-skinned, and the Sharks have been people of color, mainly Latinx plus maybe a few Black folks and Asian folks in the mix -

That's correct, yes.

- so you've certainly upended that notion by casting Noah Stewart, a Black tenor, as Tony. Can you talk about how that affects your conception of who these gangs are?

Yeah, I said it on the first day of rehearsal and I'll say it to you that one of the first stage directions in the script for West Side Story says that the Jets are "an anthology of what is considered American." I find that stage direction to be really interesting. It tells you right away that the Jets can be diverse, because even in the 50s they probably were. And some of the names of the characters indicate that. A-Rab might be Middle Eastern, for all we know.

Right! I've always wondered about that name, actually.

Yeah, I've always thought that. So to me it's absolutely justified in the writing. It makes sense that we would be able to diversely cast the Jets, and even today we know from what we're experiencing in politics that there are people who are against other people who might look like them, but because they weren't born here, they're not accepted. This is something that is real.

And that's why I feel strongly, and I always have, that West Side Story needs to have a kaleidoscope of colors and cultures represented, on both sides. Because as we know, Puerto Ricans are also an anthology of everything from native Taino to people of African heritage, and obviously white Spaniards. And then in the in the American takeover of Puerto Rico in 1898, we got even more - Irish, Polish, Italian. So I feel like the notion that in West Side Story one side is white and one side is dark is actually a misnomer.

And just hearing you say that, I'm reminded that its big, show-stopping song is simply called "America."

Yeah, and it does try to encompass the American dream, right? What is an immigrant or a migrant, which Puerto Ricans are technically since Puerto Rico's part of the U.S. What do they see, and what do they want to see in the concept of Americana, as it were? And I think that is something we continue to see today. So that's one reason I believe this piece really does stand the test of time despite the fact that there are a couple of things in the script where you kind of go, "Hmm, I'm not sure that that's really well informed." But at the same time, I would say that the work as a whole really does provide a universal experience and message.

You have been quoted as saying that as a director you're "always looking for a core theme or a core dramatic event that can live throughout the whole piece." What would that core element be for you in West Side Story?

There are a couple of things. One in particular is the way in which the Puerto Ricans interact and behave, so I've put in a couple of cultural references. They play dominoes, for example, at one point. And I make sure everyone has a bank of Puerto Rican slang or words in their pocket for where they're doing anything in the transitions that requires ad libbing.

The other big thing image-wise that I have infused into the work is Bernardo's leather jacket. Before he fights Riff, he takes it off and Chino is the one who ends up with it. What we've been playing with in rehearsal is having that jacket tracked through the second act in a way that I think will really [show] the impact of the death on Maria, specifically. So I'm looking forward to sort of seeing that through - we're still obviously rehearsing all of that. I really feel strongly that Maria needs to go through a journey of growing up and of being on the edge of almost becoming a victim of becoming a gang member herself, if that makes sense. There is this precipice that she finds herself on, especially by the end of the story that I'm very interested in. By the time we get there, she needs to have so much at stake and we need to get the sense that she could fall either way.

That's really interesting. Sometimes at the end, I wonder how Maria got to that point, you know? Because I understood who she was at the beginning of the story, and I see how different she is at the end, but I didn't really see the connecting dots.

Absolutely. And the thing that we have to realize with "I Feel Pretty" is it's right after intermission, so the last images you saw were of Riff and Bernardo dead on the ground. When you come back for "I Feel Pretty" it needs to be so high and so joyous so that then when she finds out that Bernardo is dead, everything starts to spiral in a new direction. That is something I've been working on as well with the cast, because I think you're right - it's like how did she go from A to Z?

And a lot of that has to do with how the actor plays that shift, and what is the shift. For me, it's about her growing up and gaining strength, in who she is and what she believes and how she loves Tony. What kind of love is that? I do think that when you're looking at the story, you have to go with the idea that they are in this vacuum, very much in love. To play anything other than that, I think, would be dangerous in that you would then run the risk of vilifying Tony, when in fact the story asks for something else.

You know, we've been talking about realism versus fantasy, and the conductor Christopher Ray said a great thing on the first day, "This piece has both grit and the dream." Right? And for me it's needing to really balance what is grit and what is the dream. The love story between the two of them is definitely the dream, and we have to exploit that in order to achieve the emotional impact at the end of the show.

Dance is a huge component of any production of West Side Story. Can you talk about how you've been collaborating with your choreographer Michael Pappalardo?

Michael's been wonderful. He's a great storyteller in his own right as a choreographer, and I'm very specific about what I want out of each scene in terms of movement and dance. We started from a place of what is the narrative, what is the story we're telling in this moment, and then through the dance that needs to be supported. There's a lot of strict choreography obviously, but there's a lot of also a lot of movement that is not necessarily choreographed to music but that provides that sort of bridge between what is the natural and what is the dream. The dancing can be gritty, but it's also part of the dream aspect, because in real life gangs do not dance like that, right? So it's like what does that mean in this world? Why are they dancing? What is the emotional impetus behind it? And for the audience, how is it that we can connect to them through these dances?

You've directed so many works from the standard operatic repertoire, which West Side Story decidedly is not. Are you taking a different approach for this than you would, say, for La Bohème or Così Fan Tutte?

I always start from a place of text. I call myself a text-based opera director. What I don't like in opera is when we totally ignore the text altogether and just sort of do what we think the opera is. I think a lot of opera is steeped in uninformed tradition. I don't think tradition is a bad word, but I do think that there is such a thing as a tradition that is informed versus uninformed. So I always come from a place of let's look at what the tradition is, decide if it's informed or uninformed, and then from there go back to the text and execute it in a way that I feel is more informed as to what the piece is actually about.

And you know it surprises people. Cause people say, "Oh, I never thought of Butterfly in this way." And it's like "It's all there. I just didn't do what everyone else does with that moment." From that perspective, I think West Side Story has a lot of the same baggage because it's such a hallmark of American musical theater. If I did the West Side Story that my 12-year-old mind thought it was seeing, then I would just be restaging Natalie Wood and Rita Moreno up there. And to me, you really need to start over. I've done six Bohèmes and I always start over. Of course, I'm informed in the way that I start over, but for West Side Story because it's my first one, I had never sat down with the script before preparing for this. And it was such an eye-opening thing, such as what I told you about the anthology stage direction, and other details where I went "Omigosh!" So much opened up for me in that initial read.

So I guess that's my answer to that question, that I try to approach everything the same, but of course the performers we have in this aren't all opera singers. We have a mix of opera singers with musical theater performers and professional dancers, so it is a hodgepodge. Getting all of them to be in the same world is very challenging, and very invigorating as well.

Given that you have opera singers in the cast, it is going to be miked?

It is, yes, and you know even if it were all opera singers it would still be miked. I think that the orchestration and the requirements of the piece in a space the size of the California Theatre wouldn't be well served without microphones. It will feel pretty unintrusive to the audience, because in the end the mandate is we're doing a musical at an opera company, we're not pretending to be a big, loud Broadway house, and we don't want to be. Certainly the power of the voices is something that we've talked a lot about, and we're not shying away from the sound people have. We're gonna let people let 'er rip. [laughs] And microphones only pick up what's actually there. They can't help someone sing with fuller tone, for example. And that's an advantage for us, because what we have there as a base is pretty wonderful.

You seem to work constantly, directing operas all over the country, but like a lot of women in your field, not yet at the handful of really big houses. Do you find more opportunities opening up for you recently at the bigger houses? Or is that even anything you're aiming for?

A lot of people have asked me that over the years, and my answer is always the same, that I am a particular kind of director. I think that to have blind ambition to direct in a big house is really not a very fulfilling idea for me. What's more fulfilling is the right project will come along where my skills as a director will best be served. It is project to project, and I'm really enjoying the work that I'm doing. I'm having my debut in Cincinnati this July which I'm really excited about because it's a house I've never worked at before, and a lot of new places that I'm going to in the next year or so. It's all an unpredictable, exciting existence. I think that in order to do this life, you have to be focused on what's important, and for me the thing that's important is to focus on the work that I'm doing and make sure that I am satisfied with how I am doing the work. I want to wake up every day knowing that what is most important in my soul is being reflected on the stage. That, to me, is the most satisfying part of my career.

After West Side Story opens, do you know what is up next for you?

I'm doing my first Marriage of Figaro in Bozeman, Montana at Intermountain Opera. It's funny, I have almost 17 years in the business and I've never done a Marriage of Figaro. It was a long time coming, but definitely one of those rite-of-passage operas for everyone. And then I'm directing an independently produced world premiere called Southern Crossings in New York that will go up on my birthday on June 16th at the John Jay Theater. And then I've got Aida in Cincinnati in June and July. Last year I did a world premiere, The Copper Queen, which we made into a feature film, and now I'm doing another world premiere this year and one next year. I am getting more into new works, which I'm really excited about. So yeah, I'm keeping busy!

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Opera San José's production of West Side Story will be sung in English, with English and Spanish supertitles, with performances April 16 to May 1, 2022 at the California Theatre, 345 South 1st Street, San Jose, CA. For more information or to purchase tickets visit operasj.org or call (408) 437-4450

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