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On the plus side, almost everything sounds pretty well cast and well sung. Soprano Alexandra Silber, a relative newcomer on the musical stage, sings Maria. Prominent singer and actor Cheyenne Jackson sings the part of Tony. Jessica Vosk is Anita, Kevin Vortmann is Riff, Juliana Hansen is Rosalia, Cassie Simone is Francisca, Louise Marie Cornillez is Conseuelo, Justin Keyes is Action, Zachary Ford is Diesel, Chris Meissner is Baby John, David Michael Laffrey is Big Deal, Louis Prado is A-rab, Kelly Markgraf is Bernardo, Michael Taylor is Officer Krupke, and Julia Bullock is the Girl. Members of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus sing the parts of Jets, Sharks, and Girls.
Both leads are comfortable in their roles, even if Jackson's voice didn't strike me as that of a tough street hood. He sounds like a pleasant, clean-cut, down-home young man, maybe a character from Oklahoma or The Music Man rather than a New York City delinquent in West Side Story. Anyway, it's a minor concern, and Ms. Silber's portrayal of Maria more than makes up for it. She's most persuasive, providing the production a much-needed poignancy. Indeed, she tends slightly to dominate her duets with Jackson.
The rest of the cast function well in their roles, too, especially those performers voicing the Puerto Rican contingent, who tend to get the more-colorful musical numbers in the score.
Then, it goes without saying that the San Francisco Symphony do their part admirably. OK, I admit a bias: I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and remember first hearing the orchestra around 1955. So, yes, I've always thought they were good; but, really, they seem to get better with age. Today, they can hold their own with the finest ensembles in the world for richness, sonority, balance, and precision.
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Total playing time on the two discs is about 123 minutes, and Tilson Thomas admits they did not include every note; they omitted change-of-scene music, for instance, and, of course, the dialogue. By comparison, the movie version is 151 minutes, almost a full half hour longer.
Producer Jad Vad and engineers Roni Joles, Gus Polleck, and Jonathan Stevens made the hybrid two-channel/multichannel SACD recording at Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, California in June and July 2013; and SFS Media released it in 2014. In order to overcome the presence of a live audience, the miking is fairly close. Still, it provides a good deal of detail, definition, and dynamic impact, with a surprising amount of warmth as well as spacial dimensionality in the two-channel SACD layer to which I listened. The only real problem is rather small: voices do not always seem well integrated with the orchestral support. They're too far out front. Still, this arrangement also provides excellent vocal clarity, again with a welcome touch of ambient warmth. On loudest passages one notices a trace of steely edge, although it isn't much. Then, on a final note, there is very little audience noise and no applause. Thank goodness.
JJP
To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:
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