The Library of Congress in now currently running an online exhibit West Side Story: Birth of a Classic that highlights music and memorabilia from the Library's Leonard Bernstein collection on the 50th anniversary of this extraordinary work.
Explore the Exhibition
Many items come from the Library’s Leonard Bernstein Collection. Especially intriguing are "a series of letters written to his wife Felicia while she was visiting her family in Santiago, Chile, [where] Leonard Bernstein faithfully chronicles the show’s progress during the final weeks of rehearsal through the show’s out-of-town opening in Washington, D.C. The letters reveal Bernstein’s changing emotions about the show from frustration and agony to his final state of euphoria. "