Other than by improving relations between Italy and New Zealand, I'm not sure what Decca hoped to achieve by giving the lead roles in this fiftieth anniversary recording of Bernstein's West Side Story to Vittorio Grigolo and Hayley Westenra.
Neither has a sense of the Broadway style of the work; nor do they understand the identities of the characters they are playing. It seems that the priority was to target the easy listening market in the most straightforward way possible, namely by cashing in on the names of two high-profile 'crossover' artists.
Every expense has been spared. The booklet accompanying the CD consists of a scrawny ten pages containing the lyrics to the songs in a font size far too small to read easily. The short essay entitled 'An Introduction to West Side Story by Jamie Bernstein' (the composer's daughter) not only tells us nothing useful about listening to the recording, it also contains a glaring error. She goes to great lengths to explain that the notes G, C and F sharp 'comprise a uniquely distorted chord known as a tritone'; in fact, the C and F sharp (the first two notes of the song 'Maria', for instance) are the tritone (which is an interval of an augmented fourth, consisting of three complete tones). It is also somewhat tenuous to describe the music of West Side Story as 'pit[ting] tonality against atonality'. Although there are instances of tonal ambiguity in the piece, I find they rarely represent a complete negation of tonality. Despite her relationship with the composer, I wonder why Bernstein was drafted in to write this introduction to a high-profile anniversary recording of one of American musical theatre's seminal works. On the subject of CD insert booklets, I can only agree with some of the comments made in a recent article on Musical Pointers.
These qualms aside, the recording is passable but far from special. One had hoped that Universal Classics might have learnt their lesson about the casting of Tony and Maria after the far from apt employment of José Carreras and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in these roles in Bernstein's own recording from the 1980s; at least the two of them could sing sublimely, and the presence of the composer as conductor means that the orchestral aspect of the piece has never sounded better on record.
In the new recording, we again have the problem that Tony (an American) is sung by a Latin singer (Grigolo) and Maria (a Puerto Rican) is played by an Anglophone New Zealander (Westenra). At least Grigolo has some sort of theatrical pedigree, having appeared in a number of operas in leading houses (albeit in small roles), but Westenra makes not the slightest attempt to bring drama to the role of Maria. Grigolo's Italian accent renders Tony's very American lines nonsensical ('Something's Coming' sounds just as bad here as it did when Carreras performed it), though 'Maria' and 'Tonight' are relatively passionate. Westenra is worse: her refusal to adopt even a slight accent makes 'I Feel Pretty' bland - indeed 'bland' is the word that comes to mind throughout her vocally sterile performance. She makes a pretty sound, but there is no desperation in her vocal acting.
Other than the two main principals, the recording is not too bad; it's just dull and a little undercharacterised. Connie Fisher puts in a brief appearance to sing 'Somewhere', and at least she makes something of the words; Melanie Marshall and Will Martin enliven the dramatic aspect with raw emotional singing as Anita and Riff, respectively; and the ensemble singers all show the right theatrical instincts, even though they sound a little small in numbers.
The big redeeming feature is the excellent playing of the hugely underrated Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, whose sway and attitude evoke New York to perfection. Nick Ingman's conducting is reliable and the tempos are sensible, with the exception of a disappointingly enervated account of the quintet version of 'Tonight' (one of the score's strongest moments).
Although it went on to become one of the most beloved musicals ever to appear on Broadway, West Side Story's initial run of 734 performances fell far short of the most popular Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals (for example, Oklahoma! ran 2,248) and Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady (which ran for 2,717 performances). It failed to win most of the Tony Awards for which it was applicable in 1957 - The Music Man won most of them - and it was not until the release of the hugely popular 1962 film that the show took on cult status. Thanks to that status, this new recording will probably fare reasonably well in the shops, but it's better to stick either to the Original Broadway Cast, Original Soundtrack or the complete recording on the Jay label for a more atmospheric experience.