West Side Story has always been one of my favorite films. For someone who generally doesn’t like musicals that’s saying alot. Of course it wasn’t born a movie. That didn’t come along until 4 years later. It was conceived as a new kind of Broadway musical. As it turns 50 this year I’m remembering what made it so special with a little help from National Public Radio. They’ve done a 3 part retrospective on the creation and influence of the production. Interviews with the principal creators Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins and Steven Sondheim in his Broadway debut reveal the creative process, commercial challenges, and struggles involved in bringing ths masterpiece to the stage. As Bernstein recounts of their inability to sell the score to Columbia records:

“They said there’s nothing in it anybody can sing,” he recalled. “It’s too depressing, it’s too advanced, it’s too crazy, there are too many tritones, there are too many words in the lyrics — nobody can remember them. It’s too rangy.”

A structural analysis of the score by John Mauceri, who studied with Bernstein, reveals why Columbia would eat those words. “It’s as tight and inner-constructed as any opera,” he says. In fact the songs popularity has spanned the globe as evidenced by the recording of “Be Cool” sung in German on Part 3. The report is accompanied by an
audio slide show that shows the evolution from stage to screen.

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