This was a studio recording designed to bring out the opera in the musical. Kiri te Kanawa and Jose Carreras are given the singing roles of the star-crossed lovers and they sound as good as you would expect. Opera is used to the suspension of disbelief, and the cover picture showing the two singers has them looking like the worried parents of Tony and Maria rather than the kids themselves. The decision, I suppose to avoid the 'Dick van Dyke effect', to have Nina and Alexander Bernstein do the spoken dialogue does emphasise the separation of song from speech and is a touch infelicitous, but, hey!, Lennie wrote the thing so why can't he include the family?

The un-named orchestra and chorus do a good job under Bernstein's baton and the whole production sounds fine, but it is a bit of a mongrel. Bernstein, whatever aspirations he might have had, wrote a musical (with one of the best musical librettists around) and I think the whole thing makes more sense produced as such. Go for the original stage cast recording, or even the film, even if Natalie Wood doesn't sing a note. ( )