| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
The story line is a reworking of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with minor variations, set among Polish-American and Puerto Rican street gangs in New York CitySkyline, with Statue of Liberty New York, New York" redirects here. For alternate meanings, see New York, New York (disambiguation). New York — officially named City of New York and often called New York City to distinguish it from the state of New York,'s Upper West Side. Tony and Maria fall in love, despite the fact that they are associated with rival gangs - Tony with the Jets, and Puerto RicaThe Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ("Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico") is a self-governing unincorporated organized territory of the United States located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic. Puerto Rico, the smallest of the Grn-born Maria with the Sharks. The Sharks are led by Maria's brother, Bernardo, and the Jets by Tony's best friend, Riff. When the gangs arrange a "rumble", Maria pleads with Tony to prevent the fighting, but when Bernardo unintentionally stabs Riff to death, Tony, in a rage, kills Bernardo. He and Maria plan to run away together. Bernardo's girlfriend, Anita, agrees to help, but when she is taunted by the Jets, she invents a story that Maria has been killed by Chino, the man she was supposed to marry. Tony runs out into the street, where he is shot by Chino.
The dark theme, sophisticated music, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in English language musical theatre, which had previously (with rare exceptions) tended toward light and fluffy themes. West Side Story is still produced frequently by local theatres and is occasionally produced by classical opera companies.
Bernstein's score for the musical has been extremely popular. Some of the songs include "Something's Coming", "Maria", "America", "Tonight", "Gee, Officer Krupke", "I Feel Pretty", "One Hand, One Heart" and "Cool".
In 1984This page is about the year 1984. For other uses of 1984, see 1984 (disambiguation). 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday (link shows calendar). Events January January 1 Brunei becomes a fully independent state January 1 AT&T is broken up into 22 indepe, Bernstein decided to re-record the musical, conducting his own music for the first time. Generally known as the "operatic version" of West Side Story, it stars Kiri Te KanawaDame Kiri Te Kanawa ONZ DBE AO ( March 6, 1944), is a well-known New Zealand opera singer of Maori ancestry. In 1981, she was seen and heard around the world by an estimated 600 million people when she sang Handel's "Let the Bright Seraphim" at the weddin as Maria, José CarrerasThe Catalan tenor Jose Carreras (born December 5, 1946) is a famous opera singer much admired for his Verdi and Puccini roles. He enjoys great fame through his participation in the " Three Tenors" concerts with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. Carre as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollman as Riff, and Marilyn HorneThe American opera singer Marilyn Horne (born January 16, 1934) is a mezzo soprano who is particularly associated with the music of Rossini and Handel. During her long musical career, she was greatly admired for her huge range (from contralto to coloratur who sings "Somewhere" as an anonymous character. It won a Grammy award in 1985.
The film was #41 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies and #3 on its 100 Years, 100 Passions, and has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. On AFI's 100 years, 100 songs, "Tonight" was #59, "America" was #35, and "Somewhere" was #20.