There’s never a good reason to skip a new production of West Side Story. It is a towering achievement of lyric theater, a masterpiece by four brilliant artists—Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim—all of them Jewish and gay, all seamlessly collaborating to create a plea for tolerance. Like George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, West Side Story lives happily under the headings of both opera and musical theater. The Lyric production is directed by Francesca Zambello. Joshua Bergasse is recreating the groundbreaking choreography of Robbins. And in their Lyric debuts, Ryan McCartan and Kanisha Marie Feliciano are Tony and Maria, a midcentury-Manhattan version of Romeo and Juliet. —Laura Jacobs