#1
Posted: 9/23/09 at 3:14pm
The following items are quoted from the 1994 biography of Leonard Bernstein by Humphery Burton which devotes a chapter to the making of WEST SIDE STORY:
The original producer of the WSS project, Cheryl Crawford, quit claiming, " I don't know how many people begged me not to waste my time on something that could not possibly succeed...a show full of hatefulness and ugliness." Sondheim enlisted the support of his producer friend Harold Prince to whom he had played much of the Bernstein score, and Prince, along with Robert Griffith and Roger Stevens ended up producing WSS.
During the hectic early 1957 summer of the collaboration, Jerome Robbins wanted Herbert Ross to do the choreography so that he could concentrate on directing. "Prince threatened to pull out unless Robbins agreed to be in charge of the dancing. Robbins relented, on condition that he could have 8 weeks rehearsal instead of the customery 4. Even so, Robbins entrusted some of the dance numbers to the choreographer Peter Gennaro."
Originally, The Prologue was a big chorus for the rival gangs with, as Bernstein put it, "millions of lyrics to insanely fast music." "Eventually the lyrics were dropped in favor of pure dance; the only sounds the chorus produces in the opening 5 minutes are a whistle and the rhythmical click of fingers snapping."
"Bernstein had originally intended his song 'Somewhere' to serve (with a different lyric) as the love music for the balcony scene between Tony and Maria played on a tenement fire escape. The song found its ideal position in the second act as the introduction to the dream ballet."
Bernstein was also working on CANDIDE at the same time he was working on WSS. "Tony and Maria's duet, 'One Hand, One Heart', was originally intended for Candide and Cunegonde." The music for "Gee, Oficer Krupke" was taken from the Venice scene in CANDIDE.
Back in 1957, under local 802's union rules, certain orchestra players came with the theatre--they were officially known as house men. Bernstein was unhappy with some of the string players and decided to do away with them, although realizing that they would have to be paid anyway. This decision made more room in the pit for the elaborate percussion section Bernstein needed "for a score that was heavy with jazz and with Latin-American rhythms."
Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein had worked together before: in ON THE TOWN and in two ballets, FANCY FREE and FACSIMILE. Bernstein, despite having a monumental ego, deferred to Robbins at times. Robbins had said at an early cast meeting, "I know I'm difficult. I know I'm going to hurt your feelings. But that's the way I am." "Bernstein remained in awe of him. When there was the threat of confrontation about music to be cut or an orchestration to be changed, Bernstein would back down. 'I hate scenes' he confided to Sid Ramin, one of the two orchestrators." Bernstein and Ramin had grown up together in a Boston suburb.
The biography of Leonard Bernstein makes for wonderful, fast reading and I recommend it to lovers of the theatre and classical music. Bernstein was a musical genius.
The original producer of the WSS project, Cheryl Crawford, quit claiming, " I don't know how many people begged me not to waste my time on something that could not possibly succeed...a show full of hatefulness and ugliness." Sondheim enlisted the support of his producer friend Harold Prince to whom he had played much of the Bernstein score, and Prince, along with Robert Griffith and Roger Stevens ended up producing WSS.
During the hectic early 1957 summer of the collaboration, Jerome Robbins wanted Herbert Ross to do the choreography so that he could concentrate on directing. "Prince threatened to pull out unless Robbins agreed to be in charge of the dancing. Robbins relented, on condition that he could have 8 weeks rehearsal instead of the customery 4. Even so, Robbins entrusted some of the dance numbers to the choreographer Peter Gennaro."
Originally, The Prologue was a big chorus for the rival gangs with, as Bernstein put it, "millions of lyrics to insanely fast music." "Eventually the lyrics were dropped in favor of pure dance; the only sounds the chorus produces in the opening 5 minutes are a whistle and the rhythmical click of fingers snapping."
"Bernstein had originally intended his song 'Somewhere' to serve (with a different lyric) as the love music for the balcony scene between Tony and Maria played on a tenement fire escape. The song found its ideal position in the second act as the introduction to the dream ballet."
Bernstein was also working on CANDIDE at the same time he was working on WSS. "Tony and Maria's duet, 'One Hand, One Heart', was originally intended for Candide and Cunegonde." The music for "Gee, Oficer Krupke" was taken from the Venice scene in CANDIDE.
Back in 1957, under local 802's union rules, certain orchestra players came with the theatre--they were officially known as house men. Bernstein was unhappy with some of the string players and decided to do away with them, although realizing that they would have to be paid anyway. This decision made more room in the pit for the elaborate percussion section Bernstein needed "for a score that was heavy with jazz and with Latin-American rhythms."
Jerome Robbins and Leonard Bernstein had worked together before: in ON THE TOWN and in two ballets, FANCY FREE and FACSIMILE. Bernstein, despite having a monumental ego, deferred to Robbins at times. Robbins had said at an early cast meeting, "I know I'm difficult. I know I'm going to hurt your feelings. But that's the way I am." "Bernstein remained in awe of him. When there was the threat of confrontation about music to be cut or an orchestration to be changed, Bernstein would back down. 'I hate scenes' he confided to Sid Ramin, one of the two orchestrators." Bernstein and Ramin had grown up together in a Boston suburb.
The biography of Leonard Bernstein makes for wonderful, fast reading and I recommend it to lovers of the theatre and classical music. Bernstein was a musical genius.
"Madam Rose...and her daughter...Gypsy!"
