Performing this music with Bernstein’s orchestra, in the same room where he had rehearsed it, was one of the most unforgettable moments of my life. “We couldn’t be prouder for being a part of this film.”ĭudamel calls the feeling in the room “electric. “Leonard Bernstein had actually used the room back in the 60’s for orchestral rehearsals,” notes Obie O’Brien, director of audio and video production at the Manhattan Center.
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This is music the New York Phil has played countless times, and I think this is the best they’ve ever played it.”Įighty-four musicians from the New York Philharmonic, plus six Latin percussionists, played most of the score in the grand ballroom at the Manhattan Center. “He didn’t talk to the orchestra in technical musical terms – he talked about fire and spice and bringing passion to the music. “Some of my happiest moments on the film were sitting about eight feet behind Gustavo at the Manhattan Center, where we recorded,” Sullivan says. Every note he gave to us was precious, and we always wanted to address all his notes.”īernstein was music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969, so that orchestra was the obvious choice for the new recording. There were some lyric changes and vocal assignments. But he was around all the time, came to our rehearsals, watched the choreography, listened to the actors singing the songs. “We called them the SS’s, SS one and SS two - Mr.
26.) “We were so lucky that he was with us, and we brought him in early,” says Sullivan. Of all the original authors of “West Side Story” – Bernstein, writer Arthur Laurents, choreographer Jerome Robbins and lyricist Stephen Sondheim – only Sondheim was still alive when production began in 2019. Some alterations were inevitable: Newman wrote a new arrangement of “Somewhere” for Rita Moreno to sing (the Broadway version was sung by a Shark girl in the ’61 movie, Tony and Maria sang it), and he wrote the underscore, based primarily on incidental music from the original Broadway show.Įxecutive music producer Sullivan (whose credits include “Chicago,” “Dreamgirls” and the live-action “Aladdin”) recalls talking with Spielberg at length “about everything from tempi to orchestration and arrangement and how he was going to shoot it… going song by song, with Steven playing the songs on his iPad, starting and stopping and talking about it.” “This is based more on the Broadway show,” Newman explains. There are three versions of “West Side Story”: the original 1957 Broadway score, orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, played by 27 musicians the 1961 version, conducted by Johnny Green with a 72-piece Hollywood orchestra, which Bernstein reportedly disliked and the “Symphonic Dances From West Side Story,” Bernstein’s 23-minute condensation of themes for symphony orchestra.
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I love the ’61 film, but Steven managed to make this into a movie for our day and age without being cynical.” “There are lots of different opera productions like ‘Aida’ or ‘Madame Butterfly,'” Newman adds, “but it’s always the same music. Newman likens this to a new staging of a classic opera. Our mandate was to present ‘West Side Story’ as Bernstein’s vision, in its best possible light.” Our job was not to re-arrange, not to re-orchestrate. “The ‘Symphonic Dances From West Side Story’ is in the canon of classical music. “The music of ‘West Side Story’ is timeless,” says Newman. Spielberg immediately brought Dudamel and Newman on board back in 2018. “David doesn’t have to study it he knows it already,” Williams told the director. Williams also reminded Spielberg that David Newman “knows ‘West Side Story’ better than anybody - he’s done it all over the world,” referring to Newman having conducted the 1961 film live-to-picture nearly 50 times with orchestras in the U.S. And to be able to work with Steven Spielberg on this was truly a dream come true.”
As someone who loves salsa just as much as a Shostakovich symphony, I feel this music down to my bones. Not only did he win raves for his semi-staged performance at the Hollywood Bowl in 2016, but his high-energy version of the score’s famous “Mambo” with the Simon Bolivar youth orchestra in his native Venezuela went viral years before he became music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.ĭudamel tells Variety: “`West Side Story’ is one of the greatest American musicals of all time, and Bernstein’s score is simply iconic. Dudamel also knew “West Side Story” intimately.
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