Musical Expression in Film and Theatre

West Side Story (1961)

Broadway Musical theatre, premiered in 1957
Musical Film: adapted version in 1961

music by Leonard Bernstein

songs by Stephen Sondheim
choreography by Jerome Robbins

- contemporary version of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

Maria, sister of the Sharks leader and Tony, young European American of the Jets

- the music score takes the genre musical far beyond its previous boundaries: more colloquial
than an opera, imaginative use of orchestral sound without electronic effects; mixing of Jazz, Latin
and ballroom dance music

1. “Prologue: Jet’s Song”

- rumble between rival gangs
- issues concerning races and cultural divide
- opening scene: more liked a ballet than a musical

2. “Maria”
use of tritone (“diabolus musicus”) in the melody (see note on whole tone, semitone and tritone)d

3. “America”
disillusionment by the new immigrants to America

- other contributions of the musician Bernstein as conductor, composer and educationalist