Wednesday, August 15, 2018

West Side Story-again!

Last night David and I saw West Side Story for the second time in a week. This one was Barrington Stage's production and was great.

Compared to the one we saw at Glimmerglass, this was much closer to the original production I saw on Broadway in 1957.

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Tony was sung by Will Branner. He has a fine 'Broadway' tenor voice and is a very good actor.
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Maria was Addie Morales who also sang beautifully. Compared to the soprano at Glimmerglass, who also had a nice voice but a flutter.

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Anita was Skyler Volpe and was much stronger than the Glimmerglass Anita.

This entire cast sang in what I would term the 'Broadway' sound, which has a bit of an edge to it. At Glimmerglass the sound seemed younger and less into it even though the singers were about the same age. The 'Broadway sound' uses what I call the Judy Garland 'Terminal Vibrato', begining a note with a fairly straight tone and the bringing in the vibrato toward the end. It's exciting but a bit hard on the voice.

I also liked the staging and sets better. The choreography by Robert La Fosse was based on the original by Jerome Robbins.

In short, this was the real thing. Let's have more like this at Barrington Stage where this has been an up and down season.