Download west side story - Houston Symphony

March 2013 29
®
West Side Story Associates
presents
WEST SIDE STORY
Film with Live Orchestra
Steven Reineke, conductor
Friday, March 22, 2013 8 pm
Saturday, March 23, 2013 8 pm
Sunday, March 24, 2013 7:30 pm
Jones Hall
MIRISCH PICTURES Presents
WEST SIDE STORY
A ROBERT WISE Production
Starring NATALIE WOOD
RICHARD BEYMER RUSS TAMBLYN
RITA MORENO GEORGE CHAKIRIS
Directed by ROBERT WISE & JEROME ROBBINS
Screenplay by ERNEST LEHMAN
Associate Producer SAUL CHAPLIN
Choreography by JEROME ROBBINS
Music by LEONARD BERNSTEIN
Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM
Based upon the Stage Play Produced by ROBERT E. GRIFFITH and HAROLD S. PRINCE
Book by ARTHUR LAURENTS
Play Conceived, Directed and Choreographed by JEROME ROBBINS
Film Production Designed by BORIS LEVEN
Music Conducted by JOHNNYGREEN
Presented by MIRISCH PICTURES, INC.
In Association with SEVEN ARTS PRODUCTIONS INC.
Filmed in PANAVISION® TECHNICOLOR®
Film screening of West Side Story courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.
WEST SIDE STORY© 1961 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.
West Side Story 50th Anniversary Blu-ray and Limited Edition Blu-ray Box Set available now.
Tonig
The program runs 2 hours and 32 minutes, plus a 20-minute intermission. It also includes the underscoring played by the
orchestra during the Saul Bass-designed End Credits. We ask that, out of respect for the music, for the musicians playing it
and for your fellow audience members, you remain in your seats until the End Credits are completed.
F
ifty years after the international release of its beloved screen adaptation, the Houston
Symphony is performing West Side Story composed by Leonard Bernstein and the winner of 10
Academy Awards® in its entirety, for the first time.
In 1955, a conducting engagement at the Hollywood Bowl brought 36-year-old composer Leonard
Bernstein to Los Angeles. That August, a chance meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel with playwright
rate on a musical.
Seven years earlier, choreographer/director Jerome Robbins had approached Bernstein with what
Romeo and Juliet set in slums at
the coincidence of Easter-Passover celebrations. Feelings run high between Jews and
brawls, double death
mant until that day in 1955,
when an L.A. newspaper headline about Latino gang problems inspired an exciting new path. With
the hiring of 25-year-old composer Stephen Sondheim, who reluctantly signed on to provide lyrics
only, the final pieces fell into place.
After two years of rewrites and struggles to raise financing, West Side Story
opening elicited reactions that ranged from passionate raves to stunned walk-outs. The latter were
spar
-unprecedented body
count for a musical on the Great White Way. The show was largely snubbed at the Tony® Awards in
favor of a more accessible rival, The Music Man.
Nevertheless, audiences in New York and London (where the show was an instant smash) quickly
-driven cho
ingenious transposition of Shakespeare, and the thrilling Bernstein score, with lyrics by Sondheim
that included Tonight and Maria. When Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise joined forces to co-direct
the 1961 screen version for United Artists, starring box office favorite Natalie Wood and Richard
Beymer (The Diary of Anne Frank), the result
critical triumphs.
-stars, George Chakiris (Bernardo) and Rita Moreno (Anita), took home Academy
Awards® for Best Supporting Actor and Actress. Their victories were echoed by Oscars® for Best
Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color; Best Cinematography, Color; Best Costume Design, Color
(winner Irene Sharaff also worked on the Broadway original); Best Film Editing; Best Music, Scoring
of a Musical Picture; Best Sound; Best Director (for both Robbins and Wise, the first time this award
was shared); and Best Picture. Jerome Robbins also received an honorary Academy Award®
his brilliant achievements in the art of chore
Half a century after its original release, West Side Story, the motion picture, will be presented tonight
in a format that brings its own innovations. MGM has created a restored, high-definition print of the
film that reveals details unseen since 1961. A new sound technology developed by Paris-based
Audionamix an
companies, has isolated vocal tracks from the feature, using new source-separation technology that
separates elements within a monophonic soundtrack.
In the case of West Side Story
orchestral elements on the soundtrack while retaining vocals, dialogue and effects. This allows
in a live
performance of the complete Bernstein score.
Although the original musical materials for the movie arrangements were lost, 14 months of research
by Eleonor M. Sandresky of The Leonard Bernstein Office brought to light a trove of important finds
in private collections and library archives around the country. From materials discovered in the
papers of orchestrator Sid Ramin, as well as in the archives of conductor/music supervisor Johnny
Green, director Robert Wise and producer Walter Mirisch, she was able to assemble a mock-up
short score of the complete film. Senior Music Editor Garth Edwin Sunderland, of the Bernstein
Office, restored and adapted the orchestration for live performance. At the same time, Sunderland
oversaw the creation of a brand new engraving of the entire film score, right down to last-minute
modifications made on the scoring stage in 1961.
The final result is a presentation of West Side Story unlike any in the history of this screen musical
one held, appropriately, at a concert site that celebrates the best in American music and the best of
Hollywood filmmaking two categories in which West Side Story will forever reside.
Steven Smith is an Emmy-nominated documentary producer, journalist and author of the biography
A Hear
BIOGRAPHY
STEVEN REINEKE, conductor
-after pops
conductors, composers and arrangers. He is the newly appointed principal pops conductor of the
Toronto Symphony Orchestra, music director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall and principal
pops conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts. Previously, he held posts with the Long Beach and Modesto Symphony Orchestras
and Cincinnati Pops Orchestra. The Houston Symphony welcomes him back to the podium.
on the podium with the Boston Pops and The Cleveland Orchestra. He debuted with the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra at Ravinia on July 4. His extensive North American conducting appearances
include Los Angeles, Seattle, Edmonton, Vancouver, Ottawa (National Arts Centre), Detroit, Fort
Worth, Jacksonville, Tampa (The Florida Orchestra), Calgary, Memphis and Oklahoma City.
As the creator of more than 100 orchestral arrangements for the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra,
ous Cincinnati Pops
Orchestra recordings on the Telarc label. His symphonic works Celebration Fanfare, Legend of
Sleepy Hollow and Casey at the Bat are performed frequently. His Sun Valley Festival Fanfare
avilion, and his Festival Te Deum and
Island Sojourn were debuted by the Cincinnati Symphony and Cincinnati Pops Orchestras. His
numerous wind ensemble compositions are performed by concert bands around the world.
A native of Ohio, Reineke is a graduate of Miami University of Ohio, where he earned bachelor of
music degrees with honors in both trumpet performance and music composition. He currently lives
in New York City. He is represented by Peter Throm Management, LLC.
Production Credits:
Producer: Paul H. Epstein for The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.
Associate Producer: Eleonor M. Sandresky for The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc.
Production Supervisor: Steven A. Linder
Technical Director: Mike Runice
Sound Engineer: Matt Yelton
Music Supervision: Garth Edwin Sunderland
Original Orchestrations: Leonard Bernstein, Sid Ramin, Irwin Kostal
Additional Orchestrations: Garth Edwin Sunderland & Peter West
Music Preparation: Peter West
Original Manuscript Reconstruction: Eleonor M. Sandresky
Technical Consultant: Laura Gibson
Soundtrack Adaptation Chace Audio by Deluxe: Robert Heiber, Chris Reynolds, Andrew Starbin,
Alice Taylor
Sound Separation Technology provided by Audionamix
Click Tracks and Streamers created by: Kristopher Carter and Mako Sujishi
With special thanks to: Arthur Laurents and his Estate, Stephen Sondheim, The Robbins Rights
Trust, The Johnny Green Collection at Harvard University, The Sid Ramin Collection at Columbia
University, The Robert Wise Collection at the University of Southern California, Lawrence A. Mirisch,
David Newman, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., MGM HD, Twentieth Century Fox Home
Entertainment LLC, Ken Hahn and Sync Sound
West Side Story is a registered trademark of The Leonard Bernstein Office, Inc. in the U.S. and other
countries.