Enchanted Evenings:The Broadway Musical from 'Show Boat' to Sondheim and Lloyd Webber by Block Geoffrey

Author:Block, Geoffrey [Block, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2009-10-01T20:00:00+00:00

Example 13.10. “Finale” and “Procession and Nightmare” (conclusions)

(a) Broadway ending (“Finale”)

(b) Conclusion of “Procession and Nightmare” and the film soundtrack

To better depict an age when gang warfare is still rampant and exponentially more violent than it was on the West Side in 1957 or 1961, Bernstein, in his operatic recorded reinterpretation of the score he conducted in 1985, departs from his Broadway ending. This time he has the orchestra follow the third statement of the “Somewhere” motive with a third tritone as in the “End Credits” that followed the drama in the film. But even in the 1985 recording Bernstein allows a hopeful glimmer of C major to sound when he instructs the orchestra to quickly release the third tritone.

Maria lives, but Bernstein, despite numerous attempts, was unable to create an operatic aria for her that rang true. Thus in her most Wagnerian moment Maria does not sing. In an opera, Maria, albeit “skinny—but pretty” and “delicate-boned” in contrast to the “fat lady” of operatic legend, would have no choice but to sing in order to inform audiences that the evening was over. Despite this conspicuous departure from operatic expectations, even requirements, West Side Story has been said to achieve genuine tragedy because “for the first time in a musical the hero sings while dying.”87 Perhaps more significantly, when Tony is carried off, the music of West Side Story has, metaphorically speaking, the last word. Audiences unaware of the musical relationships between death (“Procession”) and love (“I Have a Love”) and their mutual source in Wagner’s “redemption” motive (Example 13.8a–c) nevertheless cannot fail to understand that the love of Tony and Maria, like that of Siegmund and Sieglinde, Brünnhilde and Siegfried, and of course Romeo and Juliet, has redeemed the tragedy of youthful death.

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