SOUND OFF: A Round-Up of WEST SIDE STORY

This week, continuing our show-by-show analysis of the entire canon of Stephen Sondheim's theatre scores, we are taking a listen to the various cast recordings of that other legendary musical Sondheim helped to create early in his career, a show which is currently wowing them every night in its hit revival at the Broadway Theatre, WEST SIDE STORY.

Like Everybody Else

Certainly based upon one of the strongest source material subjects of all time, WEST SIDE STORY, from Shakespeare's ROMEO & JULIET, is, much like its source, among the very best examples of the genre it inhabits and a prime example of a theatre piece firing on all cylinders with seemingly every element combustible and on the precipice of an explosion. And an explosion of brilliance, among many other fine attributes, it undoubtedly is. At the time of its premiere over fifty years ago, perhaps no Broadway score was as immediately exciting and electric (figuratively and literally) as Leonard Bernstein's, no lyrics as pointed and sharp as Stephen Sondheim's, and no dialogue as unique and of-a-piece than what can be found in Arthur Laurents's book. It is gesamtunkerst, the German term coined by Richard Wagner meaning "total theatre", and the work of those three geniuses along with the legendary Jerome Robbins as director and choreographer, and the equally estimable Harold Prince producing, created a conflagration of talent never equaled. And with, perhaps, the exception of last week's subject, GYPSY, we would be hard pressed to find a score as rich, a story as dramatic and a show as revolutionary as WEST SIDE STORY. The first Broadway musical with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, WEST SIDE STORY is just about as good as theatre - from Shakespeare onwards - can possibly get. Yet, how does the score hold up on disc? With the Broadway cast recording being a cherished gem among cast album collectors and theatre-fans, does it really hold up? And what about the movie soundtrack, with Betty Wand and Marni Nixon, among others, providing the vocals for the film soundtrack when the actors were found to be not quite up to the task of tackling Bernstein's difficult score? And what of the version of the score conducted by the Maestro himself, starring a cast of opera singers with a few theatre personalities thrown into the mix? What about the newest revival, with the recording being supervised by the revival's director, and original bookwriter, Arthur Laurents, as well as lyricist Stephen Sondheim, in addition to the whole matter of IN THE HEIGHTS's Lin Manuel Miranda's newly-created Spanish lyrics created specifically for this idiosyncratic, edgy revival? WEST SIDE STORY, much like the Capulets and Montagues of Shakespeare's tragedy, divides households and it shall be impossible to separate criticism from sentimentality - as is the case with many comparisons of original casts to film casts and revival casts in cast album land - when discussing this score. Three out of these four recordings are very good, indeed, but the very best choice will more often than not lie in the heart, mind and ears of the listener himself. After all, this is one Broadway musical that fully engages all three (heart, brain, ears) like very few before, or since.

We're Gonna Have Our Day, Tonight

WEST SIDE STORY - Original Broadway Cast Recording

SCORE: 9/10

Boasting the near-unbeatable talents of a near-perfect original cast, the Original Broadway Cast Recording of WEST SIDE STORY is near-impossible to beat. The glorious, ethereal soprano of Carol Lawrence is ideal for Maria, the full-throated and rich tenor of Larry Kert is akin to manna from musical theatre heaven, and the gutsy, gritty quality imbued to Anita by Chita Rivera is the stuff of theatrical legend. Jerome Robbins notoriously drilled these young performers relentlessly in rehearsal, going so far as to force them to sit at separate lunch tables at rehearsal breaks (Jets and Sharks, respectively) and the result is simultaneously polished, practiced and near-perfect. That is both a blessing (for the resulting cast album) and a curse (the inexperience apparently shone through on stage). Perhaps the voices are a bit too operatic - yet, the same, too, could be said of the score. Perhaps, too, these performers are incapable of giving more than their very best, which is, undoubtedly, among the best Broadway has ever offered, before or since. What this cast lacks in edginess and earthiness they more than Make Up For in their carefully constructed performances of these expertly written characters. All this voluminous praise aside, the technical production of the album is lacking quite a bit of bite, particularly the first releases before the digital remastering. Sony Masterworks has done another bang-up job on this title in its re-issue and improved upon the sound of the original mono and stereo versions by leaps and bounds. While the orchestra is certainly more full on the film soundtrack and the technical aspects far superior on the Revival Cast Recording, this recording is an essential entry in any serious cast album collector's collection and you could certainly do far worse than this recording, though it is not as timeless as the GYPSY recording from the same era largely because the cast seems slightly under-rehearsed or unused to recording versus stage performance techniques. A gem, without question, but with a few imperfections that cloud it and mar the masterpiece a bit.

Jet All The Way

WEST SIDE STORY - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

SCORE: 9.5/10

One of the most awarded and highly praised film musicals of all time, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins's film version of the musical is beyond reproach. Sure, some may harp on the Day-Glo costumes or orange make-up, but as far as musicals go, this one is hard to top. The vocal performances on the soundtrack are by-and-large right up there with the original Broadway cast, and judging the enterprise purely on its soundtrack proves much easier than looking at - and listening to - the film as a whole. Rita Moreno plays Anita and while she did win a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her efforts (as did her Bernardo, George Chikaris), her voice is barely used on the soundtrack besides a few moments in "A Boy Like That" and "America". Over the years, it has become increasingly unclear who sings what, but the fact of the matter is that Betty Wand does most of Moreno's singing, with Marni Nixon providing vocals for both Maria (played in the film by Natalie Wood) and Anita, and actually duetting with herself in the "Tonight (Quintet)". Nixon is flawless as Maria, on the level with Carol Lawrence in the original, if not better, and also manages to give the role some bite. While Wood was a decent vocalist, and her original demos for the film soundtrack can be heard on the highly-recommended 40th Anniversary Special Edition DVD of the film, she is not up to the lofty demands of the score and it becomes quite clear in listening to said demos that the right decision was made in having Nixon dub her (Note: Wood's vocals are more than adequate in her film performance of another legendary Sondheim/Laurents leading lady, Gypsy Rose Lee herself in the bland film version of GYPSY starring Rosalind Russell). The men, too, are dubbed here, in some cases by other members of the company in place of the leads, yet the vocals match up to the actors on film quite effectively and seamlessly, more so than their female counterparts. The orchestra is, in a word, sublime. The orchestrations by Bernstein, Irwin Kostal and Sid Ramin are some of the best ever created for the theatre and they have never soundEd Fuller, richer, or better than they do on this, what is with few exceptions among the very best film soundtracks of all time. A real winner and the perfect introduction to the score.

Last Dying Day

WEST SIDE STORY - The Bernstein Recording

SCORE: 4/10

Plodding, lugubrious, overblown and lumbering is the Bernstein-conducted WEST SIDE STORY recording. The leads are all miscast and far too old for their roles, and while that would be fine for most operatic renderings of Broadway scores, with youthfulness being such an integral part of the success of this particular show, it creates a very unappetizing situation for listeners of this particular recording. Kiri Te Kanawa comes off best as Maria, but even then she is far too knowing and mature in her portrayal and the caramel tones of her fine instrument only exacerbate the age issue. The less said about Jose Carreras the better, as his thick accent ruins his admittedly powerful vocal take on Tony. Marilyn Horne survives relatively unscathed, yet the whole enterprise is so boring and the tempos so drawn-out that one could almost confuse it with Wagner if hearing it playing from another room. The orchestra does sound appropriately booming to match the performer's tactile bravado, and even a bit boisterous on "Gee, Officer Krupke", but it is far too little far too late in this almost completely wrongheaded affair. Perhaps this recording was made for Bernstein's opera fans who find musicals far too light and seemingly meaningless, but with a score this well-crafted their very criticisms seem questionable if they need operatic voices to persuade them to take the score as seriously as THE RING CYCLE. After listening to this recording, even the most ardent of his admirers are forced to ask themselves: what was Bernstein thinking?

Something Great Is Coming

WEST SIDE STORY - 2009 Broadway Revival Recording

SCORE: 9.5/10

It is rare to find a recording as all-around excellent and enchanting as this truly wonderful recording of the 2009 Broadway revival. While Laurents's production stirred up a lot of trouble on BWW Message Boards and beyond with its new take on the tale, supplanting the original Sondheim lyrics with some specifically selected Spanish sections for the Sharks, the results are far more winning than many may have been led to believe. This cast album is a case of the recording actually one-upping the production itself, with the fresh and ferocious cast coming off even better on record than they do in the theatre. Josephina Scaglione, a native Argentinian Laurents found on YouTube, is positively sublime and gives Carol Lawrence a run for her money in her seemingly effortlessly sung, and elegiac, ingratiatingly naïve acting and singing of Maria. Matt Cavenaugh affects a somewhat nasal quality preferred by many tenors during the time of the show's creation and while some strongly disliked his take on Tony, I actually found the somewhat dissonant sonorousness refreshing when juxtaposed to the pure, clear tone of his Maria. Karen Olivo is a powerhouse performer with an incandescently bright future on Broadway ahead of her, and this "A Boy Like That", whether the Spanish version or the English version available as an Itunes bonus track, may be the best acted and sung on record and her "America" nearly definitive, as well. The supporting cast is excellent all-around and this is among the very best sounding cast recordings I have ever heard. It is endlessly exciting - the first word that came to my mind was "electric" - and makes the score sound fresh and new. This may very well be the best cast recording of WEST SIDE STORY available and the time and care put into preserving the production on record cannot be overestimated. A true winner, all the way around.

How Beautiful A Sound Can Be

The various cast recordings of WEST SIDE STORY are bound to draw proverbial lines in the sand among cast album collectors, but to the casual listener any of these recordings would be a good bet, with the sole exception of the Bernstein recording. While the Original Broadway Cast may be the most favored among theatre fans, the film soundtrack versions of the songs are far and away the most well-known and that album's place atop the Billboard charts for over a year (!) attest to its many strengths. The revival recording is controversial for many reasons, as discussed here, but goes above and beyond the call to prove that great works of art can be re-examined and re-conceptualized in ways that reveal new intricacies and details about both the story and the score itself that may not have been readily apparent before. While I may like the revival recording for its technical precision and gutsy performances, I can also see the myriad strengths of the score's other iterations. Whether stage or film, Shark or Jet, new or old, WEST SIDE STORY is perhaps the greatest American musical of the "new" school - hell, it invented the "new school" - just as GYPSY is the best musical of the old tradition, as we discussed last week. Whatever the case, as Andrew Lloyd Webber said in an interview last week when asked what the one musical someone should see if they ever see any musical at all, it should be WEST SIDE STORY. A classic. The best of theatre - comedic, tragic, musical and dance - converged to create this masterpiece and, taking a phrase from one of the greatest American plays that happened to premiere around the same time as WEST SIDE STORY: attention must be paid.

 

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