ahhhh I have had this on my list to reply to for a while :) I love West Side Story, I've known the music since I was a kid (I don't even remember why? I think I got the cassette tape from the library after doing a medley in orchestra?) but had never seen it until I saw the movie as an adult, and then I saw it as a live musical a few years ago when visiting my sister, and we were both just extremely emotional about the whole thing.
Now, one of my West Side Story opinions is that I think it's better if the cast aren't opera singers (Bartoli in the Salzburg production excepted).
Yes, very much agree with this! Like you say, there's the age thing, but also for me there is honestly something of a... distancing to how opera singers sing. I mean, the technique is amazing and it's really neat that you can get that kind of timbre and volume to come out of a human throat, but because there's so much technique to it, it also to me often doesn't mimic the visceral "I can pretend this is someone speaking, only in music" that musical-singers can convey to me.
Dancing: heh, when I first watched the movie it took me a while to get used to dancing being normal in-universe (it doesn't bother me when watching a live musical because it's already in a highly stylized format).
I really like what you say about how everyone gets a backstory (and oof, your discusison of Chino makes me now sort of want a 5 things fic of lives Maria didn't live, that worked out). And Rita Moreno, wow! I'm really interested to see this, although the way things are going I may have to wait for streaming.
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Now, one of my West Side Story opinions is that I think it's better if the cast aren't opera singers (Bartoli in the Salzburg production excepted).
Yes, very much agree with this! Like you say, there's the age thing, but also for me there is honestly something of a... distancing to how opera singers sing. I mean, the technique is amazing and it's really neat that you can get that kind of timbre and volume to come out of a human throat, but because there's so much technique to it, it also to me often doesn't mimic the visceral "I can pretend this is someone speaking, only in music" that musical-singers can convey to me.
Dancing: heh, when I first watched the movie it took me a while to get used to dancing being normal in-universe (it doesn't bother me when watching a live musical because it's already in a highly stylized format).
I really like what you say about how everyone gets a backstory (and oof, your discusison of Chino makes me now sort of want a 5 things fic of lives Maria didn't live, that worked out). And Rita Moreno, wow! I'm really interested to see this, although the way things are going I may have to wait for streaming.