On Sunday, the Boston Lyric Opera kicked off the Leonard Bernstein Festival of the Creative Arts in Slosberg Music Center, setting a high bar for the student performances to come. The first three pieces in this nine-piece set went perfectly and flowed well into one another. The first solo performance was by Vincent Turregano; his performance of “A Simple Song” from “Mass” was incredible. The title of this song vastly undersells the rich complexity both of the music itself and of this actor’s performance. It was a semi-staged performance with movement direction by Nicola Bowie, but the underwhelming and confusing staging and choreography only detracted from wonderful acting and vocal performance, as it would for the entire performance. 

I was mesmerized by “Kaddish 2” from “Kaddish,” performed by soprano Mara Bonde with support from mezzo-soprano Heather Gallagher. This piece exceeded my expectations thanks to its simplicity and the singers’ beautiful voices. While the concert was underwhelmingly attended, I felt the hall overflowing with the voices of the two women, especially with the clear and bright ping of the soprano reaching its peak and then erupting into the “Wrong Note Rag” from “Wonderful Town.” The new, upbeat tempo excited the audience along with costume changes and choreography you would expect to find in a musical theater setting. However, the staging of this concert fell flat once again. The group of four — the three previous solo performers along with tenor Jon Jurgens — had trouble keeping their choreography in line with each other, which was conveyed to the audience by Bonde’s panicked look as she frantically tried to remember choreography. 

Later, Jurgens took the stage for an incredibly stunning solo performance of “My Twelve Tone Melody.” It was enough to make any Bernstein fan or music theory nerd stand up and cheer, despite the out-of-place glass of prop liquor Jurgens was swirling around. Alongside him, Gallagher carried the group not only with her unbelievable vocal prowess, but also with her stunning acting. These two had impeccable performances that I unfortunately had a hard time focusing on because of the unavoidable racial undertones of the song “What A Movie” from “Trouble in Tahiti.” 

The character in the piece is mocking indigenous Tahitians while extolling the handsome (white) American savior of the film she just saw. The number is meant to criticize American suburbia, but out of that context, the racist character went unchallenged by the background trio singing in agreement. I expected the post-performance panel discussion with representatives from Boston Lyric Opera and Northeastern University after the performance to address race and the racist character in some way; however, the panel merely patted themselves on the back for doing Bernstein’s “diverse” works such as “West Side Story.” Panelist Esther Nelson made the important point that artistic representation of cultural and ethnic groups needs to come from members of that community. However, she also extolled Bernstein for his work on “West Side Story” and “Porgy and Bess,” both of which were highly criticized and viewed as racist and reductionist by the Latinx and Black communities, respectively. 

These are great works, but they are not good examples of cultural representation in the arts. Another panelist, Scott Edmiston, pointed out that four white Jewish men wrote “West Side Story” and in the same breath claimed it to be the best musical exemplifying America. 

To top off the performance, an incredibly white cast finished the afternoon with a performance of “Tonight” from “West Side Story” complete with fake accents, continuing the tradition of unfairly whitewashing characters of color in theatre, especially Latinx and Hispanic characters. Whitewashing is not just an issue at Brandeis; this week, it was announced that Sierra Boggess, a white actress best known for her Broadway run as the leads in “Phantom of the Opera” and “The Little Mermaid,” will be playing Maria, a Puerto Rican character, in the upcoming British concert of West Side Story. This short concert version performed at Royal Albert Hall in London will only feature white actors. Whitewashing roles is no small problem — it is actively taking away jobs from talented actors around the world, and this performance by the Boston Lyric Opera on campus was just one example of this issue.  

While this unsettling performance kicked off the festival, I hope that it will not set the tone for the performances to come as Brandeis students and administration — along with most theatres — struggle with racial tensions.