I’ve just been watching, again, the BBC documentary that recorded the creation of the 1984 Leonard Bernstein conducted “operatic” version of West Side Story. It was on BBC Four a few weeks ago, and I’d not watched it since it was first shown in 1985.
It’s a fantastically interesting document of the wonderful musical’s first full recording, since soundtrack albums until that point, had been cut to fit on a single LP. I remember listening to dad’s LP of the musical many times on our “music centre”. After the documentary was shown, mum went out and bought this new version on cassette. I made cassette to cassette copies for myself. Since the book was reproduced in full in the accompanying booklet, I was able to sing along to my heart’s content!
But the music aside (and I do have some issues with the over operatic renditions in a couple of places), the most remarkable thing about Humphrey Burton’s film is the candid record of Bernstein working with his scratch orchestra and his tough love approach to getting what he wanted. In particular, Jose Carreras doesn’t get an easy ride.
I don’t own this version on CD, so I feel a trip to a music shop coming on soon. It’s just a shame that the DVD of this documentary that’s available from Deutsche Gramaphone isn’t quite as good as it might be, being a NTSC transfer rather than PAL.