"When I texted my friend that I was writing an article about West Side Story, she texted back, “My favourite modern musical-opera”, neatly encapsulating the conundrum: when does a musical become an opera?"
Musical-opera, eh?
"There is no definitive answer, of course, and you are entitled to your opinion. My view concurs with my friend’s. For me, West Side Story is a musical that qualifies as an opera"
Or is it an opera that qualifies as a musical? Come on, man. Poirot never sat on the fence like this.
"Interestingly, West Side Story’s composer, Leonard Bernstein, addressed a similar question himself in a television programme he made for CBS in the mid-Fifties. It was for the Omnibus series presented by Alistair Cooke, and it was a history of American musical theatre. In it, he asked: 'When is a particular work an operetta, and when is it an opera?' He took the example of South Pacific, and said when Emile sings Some Enchanted Evening we are hearing a musical, but when Bloody Mary sings Bali Ha’i we are indisputably in the world of opera."
Well, if he's talking about this Omnibus programme (South Pacific is discussed at the 6-minute mark) then he's not quite on the button. What Bernstein actually says is that "There is Nothing Like a Dame" and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair" belong to musical comedy, whereas "Bali Ha'i" is more romantic operetta. The point being that South Pacific represents a seamless mingling of the two forms.
"It’s to do with the tone, the sound, and most importantly the nature of the story. My Fair Lady could never be an opera..."
True, inspector, true. As the big fella goes on to explain, American musicals lie on a spectrum between low-brow vaudeville and high-brow opera. My Fair Lady, due to the high romance of its plot, tends towards the operetta end. But it's still a musical.
"Apply those criteria to West Side Story. The plot is deadly serious: two rival gangs on the streets of New York, two families at war, two lovers, one drawn from each family. You just know people are going to die."
Yes, and we call this tragedy, not opera.
"Using Leonard Bernstein’s analysis, the songs Maria or Somewhere belong in opera, whereas America and Gee, Officer Krupke belong in the world of the musical."
Using Bernstein's analysis, the songs may tend towards operetta or musical comedy but they are all part of the American musical theatre.
"The lyrics, too, support the musical genre – serious and they belong to opera; humorous and they belong to the musical."
Er, right. So Marriage of Figaro is a musical and Heathcliffe should play Glyndebourne? By the way, I think the good detective means "solemn" rather than "serious". Comedy, as everyone knows, is a very serious business. Especially lyricists like Big Steve:
"On the subject of lyrics, a few years ago we honoured one of the world’s greatest lyricists, Stephen Sondheim, at the Royal Academy of Music...I don’t think he would disagree if I said he was not in the most amenable of moods. He had had a bout of ill health and the transatlantic journey took more of a toll than it used to.
I said to him, rather too sycophantically, that I regarded his lyrics as poetry. I quoted my favourite couplet, which happened to come from West Side Story: 'Say it loud and there’s music playing / Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.' He said he had never been happy with that couplet. 'The rhyme is too obvious. Banal. I wish I had rewritten it.' I wonder if he really meant it."
I suspect he really, really did. Unless he was still jet-lagged when he wrote the notes for his collected lyrics, Finishing the Hat, in which he describes the praying line as contributing to the "overall wetness of the lyric". Not only that but Tony, the character who sings "Maria" in the show, was originally intended to a Polish Catholic which would have given the whole thing an interesting religious overtone. But the ethnicity of Tony was later changed which made the praying stuff wetter still.
Talking about Big Steve, it's worth pointing out his own general assessment of the show: "For most people West Side Story is about racial prejudice and urban violence, but what it's really about is theater: musical theater, to be more precise" (Finishing the Hat, p. 25). And the more musical-comedy type numbers like "America" and "Gee, Officer Krupke" served "to remind the audience that this is an entertainment, not a sociological treatise". So I suspect that he'd be on the musical side of this debate.
As an aside to this aside, it's also an interesting way to think about Sondheim's work. The conventional line is that he expanded the kinds of subject matter that musicals dealt with, from gang violence in West Side Story to French surrealist art in Sunday in the Park with George. But, in another and more curious way, I sometimes think that his work has narrowed the outlook of musicals. A lot of it is theatre about theatre.
Anyway, back to the DI Suchet:
"So if West Side Story, like South Pacific, is opera in parts, musical in parts, does the standing of the composer have any bearing on whether we can class either as classical music?"
No. Bernstein was a posh symphony conductor, Rodgers was a Tin Pan Alley tunesmith. Doesn't matter. Musical theatre has room for both which is part of its wonder as an art form.
"If West Side Story were to be staged at the New York Met, or at the Royal Opera House, who would argue against it?"
Not me. Then again, if Jose Carreras' version of "Something's Coming" is anything to go by, who would want to see it? Although Bryn Terfel having a crack at the opening dance would be interesting.
But the broader objection to the article is the assumption that musicals get some kind of legitimacy by being called opera. As the sub-heading puts it, does West Side Story deserve a "promotion"? No, it doesn't. And it doesn't need one. Bernstein may have written symphonies, concertos and ballets but, as a composer, it is West Side Story that has proved to be his most enduring work.
Case closed.
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