Hard to believe it´s almost 60 years since West Side Story was premiered in Washington D.C.
And it´s harder to believe that The Music Man won the Tony for best musical in 1958 instead of Leonard Bernstein´s most popular and enduring work for the stage.
But maybe it was the 1961 film rather than the Broadway production that really made West Side Story popular.
I can´t even remember when I first heard this musical, but I must have been really young since my brother played to no end the original Broadway album, so by the time I was old enough to see the film I knew all the songs by heart... and I have always been fond of West Side Story.
When Bernstein made his DG recording in 1984 we all had high hopes that unfortunately were not entirely fulfilled. It is reasonable to cast operatic singers since the vocal writing is mostly operatic, the problem is that ideally, they must still sound young enough to be teenagers. By 1984, Kiri Te Kanawa was in her prime and José Carreras just past his, but Te Kanawa who indeed was familiar with West Side Story, sounded much too mature for María. Carreras was mostly criticized for his heavy accent, since Tony is the local American. But the truly great performance came from the late Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, she has so much fun with her songs and is so much at home with the music that "crossover" for once was completely successful.
Now Michael Tilson Thomas takes his wonderful West Coast orchestra to pay a visit to his mentor and friend´s musical drama. The orchestra is quite superb, and relishes the latino dances as to the manner born. From an orchestral point of view he even surpasses Bernstein´s hand picked DG orchestra.
Which takes us to the always problematic singers. Tilson Thomas went for Broadway singers who sing in tune and well enough not to offend Classical Music aficionados. The Tony, Cheyenne Jackson, has a very light and sweet lyric tenor, certainly pleasant to the ear, and sounds young enough to be a credible teenager, but he sounds much too careful, too self conscious, especially when some passion is expected as in "Tonight". His Maria. Alexandra Silber seems to have the more operatic voice, and I would say she sounds older than he. To me the biggest disappointment is Jessica Vosk as Anita, she sounds younger and more Anglo than Silber, and misses the punch lines in "America", he, he, no contest for Troyanos.
This recording comes in 2 compact discs that combined amount to only some 85 minutes, but sells at a 2 cd full price of some 40 bucks. The presentation is lavish though, with a beautiful libreto with pictures and well written notes.
A chocolate box of nostalgia for those of us born in the 50´s and 60´s.
