BERNSTEIN West Side Story
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Bernstein
Genre:
Opera
Label: SFS Media
Magazine Review Date: 06/2014
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 83
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: SFS 0059
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
West Side Story |
Leonard Bernstein, Composer
Alexandra Silber, Maria, Soprano Cassie Simone, Francisca, Singer Cheyenne Jackson, Tony, Singer Chris Meissner, Baby John, Singer David Michael Laffey, Big Deal, Singer Jessica Vosk, Anita, Singer Julia Bullock, Girl, Singer Juliana Hansen, Rosalia, Singer Justin Keyes, Action, Singer Kelly Markgraf, Bernardo, Singer Kevin Vortmann, Riff, Singer Leonard Bernstein, Composer Louis Pardo, A-rab, Singer Louise Cornillez, Consuela, Singer Michael Tilson Thomas, Composer San Francisco Symphony Chorus San Francisco Symphony Orchestra Zach Ford, Diesel, Singer |
Author: Edward Seckerson
It might have helped to have added in a few more of the book’s verbal exclamations – like the provocative ‘Beat it!’ which triggers the scrap in the opening ‘Prologue’ or some vocal sense of physical altercation in the ‘Rumble’, culminating as it does in the sound of police sirens and the ominous chiming of the clock but, more importantly, Tony’s howl of ‘Maria!’, which is excluded here and present only in the super-complete Jay Productions recording and the otherwise disappointing New Broadway Cast. I wonder, too, what point there is in including the ‘Baiting of Anita’ if you don’t include the vocal abuse and her reaction to it – again the Jay Productions recording does. In short, the new MTT version can feel a bit divorced from the stage, a bit pristine, steam-cleaned. The ‘Prologue’, for instance, has great clarity and immediacy and is very slickly played but I miss a degree of physical abandon, of rawness, stridency, of the music being danced.
That said, when MTT lets his San Franciscans off the leash in the ‘Mambo’ and ‘Jump’ sections of the ‘Dance at the Gym’, they are smoking hot. Trumpets strafe the stratosphere in the former and a terrific kit drummer makes the dance break of ‘Cool’ really sizzle. No question that MTT leaves the composer’s own version standing in both these numbers. Neither, though, can replicate the atmosphere of the Original Broadway Cast recording which (despite its incompleteness) conveys a vivid sense of the stage, of a cast revelling in the shock of newness, warts and all.
But immense care has gone into the preparation and presentation of this latest incarnation, and casting, as I say, is on the money. The Balcony scene ‘Tonight’ is about as good as it gets, with Cheyenne Jackson’s fresh-voiced Tony and Alexandra Silber’s Maria really nailing both dialogue (pitch-perfect) and number. He is idiomatic and engaged, and while he doesn’t give us the high B flat in ‘Maria’ (I suspect he and MTT might have thought it too overtly ‘operatic’), he does give us bags of ardour and intensity. Terrific. Silber is lovely, too, with more vocal colour than the average show (soubrette) soprano but never ‘arch’, never knowingly slipping into operatic mode.
Jessica Vosk’s Anita has a tough act to follow in the great, the incomparable Chita Rivera. She remains in a class of her own with that unique way of making the hurt and anger of ‘A boy like that’ sound like an extension of the dialogue. Vosk sings the song (well) but I don’t get the heat of the moment from the very ‘even’ way in which the vocal is delivered. And ‘America’ – why so sedate of tempo, so ‘proper’? Is this MTT striving for a more authentically Latino dance mode? Shouldn’t there be a touch more vulgarity in the clash of cultures?
In all, though, pretty damn good, and the first serious challenger to the perhaps never to be surpassed Broadway original – and, more importantly for some, it’s musically, if not quite dramatically, complete.
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