West Side Story (The Original Soundtrack Recording)

iTunes Review

Musical director Irwin Kostal and conductor John Green push the envelope of Leonard Bernstein’s already variously angry/winsome/defiant/melancholy/triumphant score, and completing the 1961 film’s transformation of Broadway hit into epic Hollywood illusion are the off-screen voices of Jim Bryant and Marni Nixon. Dubbed to the onscreen personas of Richard Beymer’s Tony and Natalie Wood’s Maria, the duo give suitably bigger-than-life takes on the show’s central romantic song cycle, “Something’s Coming,” “Maria” and “Tonight” and “Somewhere.” Rita Moreno is a playful foil to Bernstein’s Latin-rhythm firestorm “America,” while Russ Tamblyn provides the comic relief on “Gee, Officer Krupke.” But enough can’t be said about Nixon’s crucial, yet largely unheralded performance where she also remarkably voices both Maria and Anita in “A Boy Like That/I Have A Love.” West Side Story is a musically voluptuous Hollywood take on a decidedly New York state of mind – and arguably the high-water mark of the American film musical.