Sep 25 2007
Must-Have CD for West Side Story Fans
I just had the good fortune of stumbling upon the West Side Story 50th Anniversary Recording CD. Wow…Great stuff!
The CD features Vittorio Grigolo as Tony and Hayley Westenra as Maria. If you’ve never heard of them, they are both very talented classical crossover artists, and they both deliver great performances on this album.
Here is a short video clip of Tonight:
Honestly, I don’t think Hayley could do a live show. Her voice is not “big” enough, and her acting doesn’t seem to be too astounding. Her singing is too polished and not passionate enough for Broadway. Vittorio, I think, could play Tony quite well in a live production - he has more punch, I think. However, I do think that they both do a fine job on the recording, and it’s a great listen.
Other thoughts on the album - They made the tragic error of having Hayley sing Somewhere by herself. It would have been amazing if Vittorio had sung it with her. One Hand, One Heart is great. The second instance of Tonight (the version which is sung by the PRs, Jets, Tony, and Maria is probably my favorite track from the album. The orchestra on this CD seems to be fuller and smoother…overall, great.
My main beef with West Side Story is that the music doesn’t fit the setting and story. I love the music, but somehow, gangsters singing classical love songs hasn’t ever seemed to be the right fit to me. I’ve always thought that it would work better as a rock opera like Evita. This CD, of course, makes the music even more classical, which is amazing to listen to, but I don’t think it would work as well in a show. That’s just me, though…
Click Here To Buy West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Recording
Sounds good to me. I’m not a huge West Side Story fan, but I do love the music in it. I thought Evita was broing and didn’t care much for the music in it, so I probably wouldn’t like West Side Story as a rock opera. Although I wouldn’t mind them making a modern day opera version of it. I can’t help but love the music that is already in the show. There’s some upbeat music the gangs sing, but I’ve always thought the softer music represents the change that love brings out in Tony and that the festive music represents well how the immigrants feel about America. My only beef with the musical is that in the stage version the two go into bed together out of wedlock, supposedly - it’s implied. That always ruins a show or a movie for me.
Yeh, I hate it when they send characters to bed before they get married. I’m like, why did you have to do that? You just ruined a good romance, and it doesn’t usually even make a difference in the plot…
Yeah, luckily most of the time they just lay down on the bed and the scene blacks out, but unfortunately there are many musicals that are all about sex. For example, I really don’t like Spring Awakening.
We see the same thing in movies. There are too many sex scenes and bad language that ruin films.