No 4. “Tonight (Quintet)”
WEST SIDE STORY (1957). Music by Leonard Bernstein. Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by Arthur Laurents. Conceived by Jerome Robbins.
It’s 1957, and you’re seeing West Side Story, a contemporary update of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It begins with a wordless dance sequence showing tension and violence between the Jets, a white gang used to ruling the Upper West Side, and The Sharks, a Puerto Rican gang new to the neighborhood. The music is jazzy, modern, and honestly a little difficult, but it’s growing on you. You notice that West Side Story doesn’t really have an ensemble —everyone on the stage is a character with a name, and they all act, sing, and dance. Tony, a former Jet who’s trying to get out of the rival street gang business, falls in love with Maria, the sister of the Sharks’s ringleader (Bernardo). After meeting at a dance in the local gym, Tony and Maria do their equivalent of Shakespeare’s “Balcony Scene,” singing a soaring duet on a fire escape. Near the end of Act 1, Tony and Maria reprise this duet in counterpoint with the Sharks and Jets as they prepare for a rumble. Anita (Maria’s friend and Bernardo’s lover) joins in to sing about the sexy rumble she and Bernardo will have after the fighting is done. (“Tonight (Quintet)”) The ensuing rumble ends Act 1 with the deaths of Bernardo and Riff (Tony’s best friend and The Jets’s leader).
West Side Story was a collaboration of reigning and emerging musical theater supernovas—Leonard Bernstein (renowned composer equally at home on Broadway and symphonic stages), Arthur Laurents, Jerome Robbins (revered, innovative, and tyrannical choreographer), Stephen Sondheim (genius-in-training, Oscar Hammerstein’s protege), and Hal Prince (soon-to-become one of the most influential people in theater history). Together, they crafted an experimental evening that:
weaves modern jazz music throughout a thrilling dramatic score
uses dance, music, and drama in equal measures to tell a story
feels at home in a classical theater, opera house, or ballet company.
They were so successful in this experiment that no one has really attempted it since. But West Side Story’s biggest impact was on how musicals were performed. Prior to WSS, musicals typically had large ensembles of nameless, characterless townsfolk that were often separated into singing and dancing choruses. West Side Story did away with both ensembles and replaced them with versatile “triple threats” who could handle musical, dramatic, and choreographic challenges. The “Tonight (Quintet)” can stand shoulder to shoulder with high opera (is anything more exciting than the moment all the voices come together at the end?)…only in West Side the cast has to launch into a demanding dance/fight sequence once they finish singing their faces off.
Recommended Recording: ”Tonight (Quintet),” West Side Story (1957 Original Broadway Cast)
West Side Story has one of the most enduring and popular Original Broadway Cast Recordings (OBRCs) in history. (It became a certified Gold record in 1962.) It was produced by Goddard Lieberson, the longtime president of Columbia Records whose dedication to preserving comprehensive show recordings led to the label introducing the LP in 1948. It captures the renegade energy of the production, and the great Chita Rivera makes a monumental impact with Anita’s verse. The actors playing Maria and most of the Sharks are about as Puerto Rican as noodle kugel.
Alternate Performances
West Side Story has received ~50 cast recordings (and this is with many notable productions that sadly never got recordings of their own), plus nearly twice as many instrumental, orchestral, or pop interpretations. I’m pretty sure in order to properly call yourself a “Jazz Trio” you have to put out a West Side Story album, otherwise you’re just “Sparkling Blues.” All of these are rendered irrelevant by Cher’s version in which she plays all the parts.
1961 Film: Jerome Robbins Co-Directed, adapting his (and co-choreographer Peter Gennaro’s) original choreography for screen and making the leaps and finger snaps as memorable as the score1. Co-Director Robert Wise refused to have anything less than perfect singing, leading to everyone in the cast’s vocals being dubbed at some point, even if only for a couple of notes. But it also led to a great soundtrack! It features basically the entire score (though reordered and with a few minor lyric tweaks to placate either censors or a vocally self-critical Stephen Sondheim). Rita Moreno makes putting on silk stockings during Anita’s “Quintet” verse the sexiest thing anyone has ever done.
2009 Broadway Revival:West Side Story remains one of a few musicals to feature latin characters, but the roles lack authenticity and nuance, and the frequent casting of WASPy actors in the Puerto Rican roles kept the spray tan industry afloat for decades. Arthur Laurents tried to address this legacy in his 2009 revival. The roles were cast appropriately, and the Sharks largely spoke and sang in Spanish, without any English supertitles for the audience. (Lin-Manuel Miranda, fresh off In the Heights, did the translation.) It was an interesting idea that could have worked, but audiences hated its execution, preferring to understand the words people were saying. Midway through the run, the production reverted back to the original English.
2021 film version: Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner made a movie that answers the question: “What if we took 60% of the dance from West Side Story and use that time to address 65 years worth of criticism?” But it works. Steven Spielberg is good at making movies, everyone is aggressively hot, Rachel Ziegler is a definitive Maria, and Ariana DeBose gets to sing Anita’s sexy “Quintet” verse DURING A CATHOLIC MASS!
Is it Covered by The Rat Pack, Audra McDonald, or Glee?
Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra recorded “Maria,” Tony’s ode to a girl he just met, in 1962. Sammy Davis Jr. has a sublime WSS medleyaccompanied only by bongos. He also performed a “mod” version of “Tonight” that features a tap break. A tap break!
Audra McDonald sang the Maria part of the quintet in a Sondheim 75th Birthday concert at the Hollywood Bowl. She also sings the “Tonight” duet with Mandy Patinkin in the album/television special Leonard Bernstein’s New York. She recorded another WSS song, “Somehwere,” on her album How Glory Goes.
Glee has a season-long arc about West Side Story, but does not perform the “Tonight (Quintet)” for some reason.
In the Wings
While you wait for No. 5 to drop next week, you may want to search the phrase “Jerome Robbins back into orchestra pit” for one of Broadway’s most enduring anecdotes.
Robbins was actually kicked off the set after his perfectionism required too many costly retakes that put the movie behind schedule. But his choreography remained.
When I first read Tonight in my email, I thought - it has to the Quintet, and then I read more - and well I was right. I concur that this is a brilliantly crafted song of musical theatre. The Cher version was such fun (I am listening to her autobiography now). Also I do find it interesting that it did not appear on Glee. In terms of the 2009 revival I think the Spanish in the quintet worked well (but I speak Spanish) but I do think the other attempts of Spanish were not great because it left the audience lost. In the Heights was crafted in an appropriate way that it seems bilingual but West Side was not done in the same way. Super scripts could have made it work but as you said that was not the choice made. I am pretty sure the tour retained all of Spanish when it came to CLE which fell flat and left the audience cold.