David Grabarkewitz says "West Side Story" is "one of the greatest stories ever told."
After all, he said, it's based on Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet," about the star-crossed lovers willing to die for their love. This version of the story plays out in the racially divided streets of 1950s New York and tells the story of Puerto Rican teenager Maria and Tony, the white boy she loves but could lose to the gang violence that has ensnared them.
But Grabarkewitz, who is directing El Paso Opera's production of the musical this weekend, had never seen "West Side Story" before. Not the 1961 movie. Not the 2009 Broadway revival of the classic 1957 musical, which had a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and choreography by Jerome Robbins.
"The best shows I direct are the ones I've never seen before or directed before," Grabarkewitz said during a rehearsal at First Presbyterian Church. "Gratefully, I've never seen anything of 'West Side Story,' the movie or the show, so I get to bring to it my own palette. I get to describe it how I see it."
He sees it as a love story set amid the powder-keg politics of a racial divide, a metaphor for the tear in the cultural fabric of El Paso and Juárez that's been created by Mexico's drug war.
"It's a great love story. It's 'Romeo and Juliet.' I think that's the most important thing to understand," he said. "The story is about star-crossed lovers, one from Juárez, one from El Paso, in my head, but ... it has to stay in Manhattan."
Grabarkewitz has secured permission from the creators' estates to "comment on the current violence in Juárez," but not to change the play's locale.
"I feel this piece, which I honestly consider the most important and beautiful piece El Paso Opera will do for years, comments directly on (the border) without taking it out of Manhattan," he said. "We are able to keep the piece in Manhattan while saying, 'Wow, this is 10 blocks from my office.' "
While they can't move the setting, they can use the set to suggest that divide. "What we are able to do with the set is to describe it with a fence," Grabarkewitz said, "which is ... an abiding part of how things are described here in El Paso-Juárez right now."
The musical is a departure for the opera company, which opens its 18th season trying to stay viable after struggling with debt in recent years. Its spring production of "Madama Butterfly" was its first full opera in two seasons, and it plans to stage "The Marriage of Figaro" in March.
"West Side Story" may be a more commercial vehicle, but its director sees no difference between opera and musical theater. "They are the same medium, clearly, with music, singing plus storytelling," he said, not to mention dance.
Grabarkewitz did not want to tamper with Laurents' script or fiddle with the songs, including classics such as "Maria," "America," "Somewhere" and "Tonight," which express that love and frustration.
But he has given New York choreographer Seán Curran, with whom Grabarkewitz has worked on several New York City Opera productions, free rein to reinterpret Robbins' 1950s, jazz-infused dances.
"What David is doing is great," Curran said. "It's so political. It's art doing its job, holding a mirror up and asking a lot of questions."
Curran is a former member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, an original cast member of the off-Broadway production of "Stomp," and founder of his own modern-dance troupe.
He hadn't seen "West Side Story," either, until he got this job, so he studied the DVD of the movie and the original Broadway cast recording to start coming up with ideas.
Curran's been "digging into my post-modern toolbox" to create what he called a "fresh, athletic take with little touches, like homages to Jerome Robbins."
He created new steps -- including rechoreographing the "Dance at the Gym" number "from scratch" -- while adding modern and ethnic dance touches. What he calls the Jets' "iconic jump" has been left intact.
They are overseeing a 40-member cast, about 12 of whom are New York-based actors, singers and dancers. Those include Diane Phelan, a soprano who played Maria on an international tour, and tenor Michael Marcotte, who has sung with the New York City Opera (he recently replaced Chad Johnson, who fell ill, Grabarkewitz said).
The bulk of the cast is made up of local actors, including Border Theatre's Austin Savage and UTEP Dinner Theatre's Don Cieslik, and college students from El Paso Opera's young artists program.
Phelan thought it was "crazy" that Grabarkewitz had never seen the iconic musical about love and race, but likes his take on it, praising him as "an actor's director" who "gets to the heart of the matter."
Phelan admits she didn't know much about the violence in Juárez at first. "I thought, 'Oh, it's next to Mexico. Maybe I'll go visit,' " she said.
She was more clear about her approach playing the smitten 16-year-old Puerto Rican girl who wants a life with her white boyfriend. Maria, she said, is the strongest character in the show.
"She's Juliet. She's an old soul," Phelan said. "She's able to transcend societal and cultural boundaries. She can see the bigger things."
Grabarkewitz hopes audiences will, too.
"What I simply want to do with 'West Side Story' is comment, not judge," he said. "I prefer art without judgment, to say this is the case now, to hold up a mirror and take a peek."

Doug Pullen may be reached at dpullen@elpasotimes.com; (915) 546-6397. Read Pullen My Blog at elpasotimes.com/blogs.