The original review

Bernstein West Side Story

Te Kanawa sop Carreras ten Troyanos mez Ollmann bar composite Broadway chorus & orch / Bernstein (Deutsche Grammophon)

Not all aficionados of Broadway musicals are going to warm to this de facto operatic treatment; not all opera-lovers or devotees of Bernstein are going to rate West Side Story as an equivalent to opera. But any listener who keeps any sort of open mind must recognize this historic set as superb entertainment and great music-making on every level. It is astonishing that before this recording Bernstein had never conducted his most famous work. The very opening with its bare twitching rhythms and matching angular ballet movements has its full effect as the first of Bernstein’s intensely original coups. It at once illustrates how the precision of ensemble from this select band of musicians is far keener than you would ever get in a theatre performance. Some theatre traditionalists might find that precision disconcerting, but in fact the balance of priorities has been shrewdly judged. The clarity and precision is always spontaneous-sounding, involvingly so when the big set-piece dance numbers really get going. The relative dryness of sound in the RCA Studio is welcome when it keeps the sound-picture within an apt scale without losing necessary bloom on instruments and voices. Dame Kiri may not be a soprano one would ever cast as Maria on stage, yet the beauty of the voice, its combination of richness, delicacy and purity, consistently brings out the musical strengths of Bernstein’s inspiration. If the kittenish ‘I feel pretty’ may initially seem to present a problem, what emerges from Dame Kiri’s sparkling performance is the way that the girlishly coy lines suddenly explode in each stanza into a rich romantic line for the payoff, ‘For I’m loved by a pretty wonderful boy!’ Carreras as Tony brings out the pure beauty of big melodies like ‘Maria’ or ‘Tonight’, but even a sharp number like his first solo, ‘Something’s coming’, with floated pianissimos and subtly-graded crescendos allied to sharp rhythms, is made more clearly a question-mark song, full of expectation. If West Side Story set the pattern for a generation of Broadway musicals in combining the toughest of exteriors with the softest of centres, the refining process represented in this recording enhances that contrast. With dialogue reduced to an absolute minimum – limited almost entirely to the exchanges of Tony and Maria well spoken in a stylized way by Bernstein’s son and daughter – it is necessary to follow the libretto fully to appreciate the development of the story in many places. In songs diction may not always be so clear as with less rich-toned singers, but after coaching Carreras has managed a very passable American accent and Dame Kiri a creditable Spanish-American one. Edward Greenfield (4/85)

Edward Seckerson I fear I’m going to be the bad cop in these exchanges. With the benefit of hindsight, I think it’s now clear what actually drove this misguided project. The idea of ‘operatising’ West Side Story can be traced all the way back to the genesis of the show when Bernstein locked heads with his collaborators over Maria’s big speech in the final scene. He very much wanted it to be sung-through in the manner of an operatic scena. Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins rightly resisted. This was a groundbreaking piece of musical theatre – a book musical with a heavy dance element – and the idea that it might in some way be elevated by calling it an ‘opera’ clearly stayed with Bernstein through the decades. He always downplayed the importance of his Broadway shows – it was more important to be taken ‘seriously’ as a composer by his peers. Even so, I am amazed that he refused to recognise the stylistic disconnect that using operatic voices would inevitably bring. You might call it an interesting experiment. But it’s overproduced, the operatic voices overprojected, and there’s the bizarre effect of a full-blown Spanish tenor as the all-American boy Tony. Wasn’t he in the wrong gang? The one thing to celebrate here is the quality of the band. But even that is undermined by Bernstein’s consistently foursquare tempos. That electrifying Prologue fails to build in impetus. Nasty street brawl? Hardly. Sneakers at dawn? Perhaps.

Edward Breen Since you’ve so generously put your cards on the table, I’m happy to be the good cop here since I love this recording and particularly the cultural history that surrounds it. That’s not the same as saying I think it’s entirely successful, though; in fact, I agree wholeheartedly with most of your points, especially your designation of it as an ‘interesting experiment’. It’s fascinating! And here we are, still talking about it. However, I feel differently about the voices. If you come at it, as I do, from an early music background, there’s less of a surprise in hearing larger voices where one might prefer a gentler, nimbler tone. I mean, I grew up with Otto Klemperer’s St Matthew Passion, and I think that informed the way I approached West Side Story: serious classical music always seemed to have operatic voices in it, so I assumed this was a serious West Side Story. Building on that train of thought, wasn’t it also an attempt by Bernstein to make a definitive recording of the work and to cement his reputation as a serious composer? I wonder if, in doing so, Bernstein was less sensitised to the disconnect in the vocal casting – this was his dream team, after all. There are moments in ‘Maria’, ‘A boy like that’ and ‘I have a love’ when I think the operatic approach really delivers. And then there’s the orchestra! It steals the show, especially at the opening of ‘America’ where the marimba and the polyrhythms are captured in such amazing high quality. So yes, it’s complicated, but I’m more good than bad cop.

ES You make interesting points about style, or rather the conceit of playing against it with larger, more operatic voices. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a lover of great voices. But there are great voices in musical theatre too – and they are specifically tailored to be closer to speech than operatic voices ever are. When the recording elects to introduce younger voices – that is, Bernstein’s adult children – to play the dialogue, namely the first meeting of Maria and Tony and the Balcony Scene, isn’t it an admission of defeat and frankly absurd that they bear no resemblance whatsoever to the singing voices of their older counterparts? Isn’t that an admission that this West Side Story is entirely about beautiful singing? That’s where it ceases to be ‘serious’, in my view. I, too, love Kiri Te Kanawa’s sound, and it pays dividends in ‘A boy like that’ and ‘I have a love’ – perhaps the most astonishing part of the show. But this isn’t Aida, and just as Te Kanawa’s Maria is somewhat ‘arch’, Tatiana Troyanos’s Anita is positively gothic. The wit of Stephen Sondheim’s lyric in ‘America’ is hopelessly upstaged by hokey accents. I totally agree that the band steals the show, but Lenny never lets it off the leash. There’s a clarity to the Mambo, but compared with the original cast recording this is comparatively tame. I feel that all the dance music here is very earthbound – or, should I say, studio-bound. For me, the bottom line is that there is more ‘theatre’ in Humphrey Burton’s documentary about the making of it than there is in the recording.

EB Indeed, the ‘theatre’ is missing. I don’t think the album hangs together as a show or a story at all, and the spoken text is unquestionably the moment of greatest disconnect – I smile at Edward Greenfield’s polite description: ‘stylized’. I’m glad you mentioned the elephant in the room, though: I find it impossible to separate this album from the documentary. That footage of José Carreras working so hard to tighten his rhythms in ‘Something’s coming’ is always in my mind when I hear that number, and then it’s never half as bad on the album, so I agree there’s more ‘theatre’ in the documentary! It’s both a spectacular own goal and part of the enduring fascination of this album – is it any wonder that French and Saunders made such an on-point parody? I now realise that Burton’s Session Report is also in the April 1985 issue, so I don’t know if Greenfield had seen any of the footage when he wrote his review but I’m intrigued that he makes no mention of Wilmer Wise’s trumpet playing – it’s unmissable. He makes ‘The Dance at the Gym: Blues’ so exciting. Sondheim once said that Bernstein lived in ballet and orchestral dance music, which explains why his orchestral scores are so sensational and so rhythmically driven. I just don’t get how the same person can write such sensationally funky music but keep his orchestra on a leash, as you say. What do you make of Kurt Ollmann as Riff? I think he’s one of the better cast singers, but I hear a carefulness in his performance that holds him back at times.

ES Ollmann comes closest to a Broadway delivery – he was the go-to baritone for straddling the divide between musicals and opera. But because he’s surrounded by opera grandees there’s a formality to his delivery. Gang member? Banker, more like. Again, the focus is on the singing more than it is on character. The whole thing is a drama-free zone. And even the light relief – I’ve mentioned ‘America’ – feels overworked. The wickedly satirical ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ is a stroke of genius, placed where it is (unless you’re talking about the film) amid the most intense drama; but nobody laughs when, as in this rendition, you are trying too hard to be funny – nudge, nudge (wink, wink). You are entirely right to say that the dance music is at the heart of the piece – and yes, Wise, the scorching first trumpet, is maybe the best thing about the album. Again, though, a player like that needs more freedom than Lenny gives him. Isn’t it strange that one of the most dynamic conductors in history (and, as you know, I worship everything about him) can sound so pedestrian in his own masterpiece. I can never quite believe my ears each time I hear ‘I feel pretty’ – slow, no sparkle; Kiri sounds like the Marschallin on an away day.

EB The irony of rival singing styles in a piece about rival gangs is not lost on me! However, I will hold on to my positivity. Those isolated dashes of Bernstein magic justify this album’s status as a classic for me; for example, I love the wistful ‘I feel pretty’ on its own terms, if not in the narrative context. I’m only grateful I didn’t have to review the recording at the time. Decades later I’m still happily indecisive about certain aspects of it, even though I deem it a classic – surely that must mean something. Precisely for all the points we’ve mentioned, I’m willing to wager that this album will still be dividing opinions in another forty years’ time; furthermore, it might just be the way some of these performers are best remembered in the distant future.

ES I’m afraid that for me the idea of a ‘posh’ West Side Story – or, should I say, a ‘Central Park West Story’ – was wrong-headed then and still is today. Now, I wonder where I put the original cast album …