If nothing else, I think when discussing some of the best musicals ever, you can't leave WSS off the list. I've said this so many times, but there's a big difference between best and favorite. For instance, Gypsy is certainly not one of my favorite musicals, but I can admit it certainly is one of the best.
And Dre of course I love the orchestration(and score is coupled in there...) but that's not just the main reason I think it's...one of the best, if not the best. First, there's the choreography. To have the amazing dancing and steps in the show, but have every bit of it tell the story, some in nonconservative ways. I mean, the entire background information is told in a dance in the first 10 minutes of the show. The rumble and fights are all choreographed. The dream ballet goes further than Oklahoma, and the way the chords perfectly turn into the nightmare sequence and the rumble is recreated..the Mambo demonstrating the fight, Cool demonstrating the tension, etc.
And I'll try to keep my praise of the music brief, but pretty much it works with the dancing to tell the story, some songs...just to quote Arthur Laurents on the DVD, he basically said who the hell would come up with these songs? The duet of A Boy Like That and I Have A Love, with the line of bass clarinets clashing with the flutes and violins when Maria comes in...the Tonight quintet was an incredibly influential piece of music for the kind of song that everyone joins in on and sings their own version(One Day More from Les Miz comes to mind), and while I'm not sure, what I've seen/read credits the quintet for really being the first of its kind--and again just combining Tony and Maria's theme with the gangs' tonight...not to mention the amazing orchestrations for the Rumble, each gang having its own theme, and the music totally shifting gears as soon as they start fighting...everything matching perfectly in the rumble, the slow tension from one clarinet to the whole orchestra playing Riff's death, and then just the chaos developing after...the tension in Cool, etc.
The creative way they played off Romeo & Juliet, where you can see all the tragic mistakes, and how much it mirrors the story if you want to view it that way, but then they took the necessary steps to make it different enough to make it more relevant. Having Anita nearly raped to ruin the message was so much more powerful than the person who was supposed to receive it getting sick. The love story was important, but there was a huge political message emphasized, especially for the time. They really integrated pressing issues with the classic love story.
The material was fairly revolutionary for its time--not too many shows in those days had the first act end with two dead bodies lying on the stage. I mean...The Music Man won the tony over West Side. That's just...I can only think reflective of what people liked seeing in those times.
Appropriately, WSS was this past year chosen as the most influential musical of all time.
Is it perfect? No. The strange placing of the songs was changed for the better in the movie, and yes Maria's English was too advanced in "I Feel Pretty."
Anyway, if there is ONE answer of what show would the greatest amount of BWWers agree on as the best, I think it would be Gypsy. I certainly wouldn't argue with that choice. When you get to the best of the best, I find it more interesting and productive to pick a couple of the best as opposed to one of the best because...you're really getting into nitpicky things when you compare Gypsy to Fiddler on the Roof for example. Anyway, from things I've heard and read, there are 4 shows often brought up most as perhaps the best musicals ever: West Side Story, Gypsy, Fiddler on the Roof, and My Fair Lady. All made within 8 years of each other. I certainly love present Broadway, but there are times I wish I could go back in time to the Golden Age.
"If there was a Mount Rushmore for Broadway scores, "West Side Story" would be front and center. It snaps, it crackles it pops! It surges with a roar, its energy and sheer life undiminished by the years" - NYPost reviewer Elisabeth Vincentelli
