If the job of a 'crossover' record is to shatter preconceptions on both sides of any musical fence, then this is the greatest ever. Not all the aficionados of Broadway musicals are going to warm to de facto operatic treatment of West SideStory: not all opera-lovers or devotees of Bern- stein as star conductor are going to rate WestSide Story as an equivalent to opera. But any listener who keeps any sort of open mind, forgetting the constriction of barriers, must recognise this historic disc as superb entertainment and great music-making on every level, with an emotional impact closely akin to that of a Puccini opera. That of course is the doing of Leonard Bernstein as conductor as well as composer. It's astonishing that before this recording he had never conducted his most famous work.
Te Kanawa may not be a soprano you'd cast as Maria on stage, yet the beauty of the voice, its combination of richness, delicacy and purity, brings out the musical strengths of Bernstein's inspiration. Similarly, with Carreras as Tony, it's self-evident to point out how such a voice brings out the pure beauty of the big melodies like 'Maria' or 'Tonight', but even a sharp number like his first solo, 'Something's coming', with floated pianissimos and subtly graded crescendos allied to sharp rhythms, makes it more clearly a questionmark song, full of expectation, more than just a point number. Marilyn Horne is in glorious voice, while Tatiana Troyanos will surprise you as Anita with the way she could switch her naturally beautiful operatic voice into a New York throaty snarl.
Troyanos, it appears, was brought up in exactly the area of the West Side, where the story is supposed to be set, which makes her natural affinity with the idiom less surprising. Kurt Ollmann, American too, as Riff equally finds a very confident balance between the traditions of opera and those of the musical. Diction may not always be so clear as with less rich-toned singers, but Carreras manages a very passable American accent and Dame Kiri a creditable Spanish-American one.
The speed with which the piece moves is astounding, not just as superb entertainment but as a Shakespearean tragedy modernised and intensified.

the great vocal melodies are worthy of voices of the highest calibre...[Troyanos] spans the stylistic dichotomy to perfection in a superb portrayal of Anita. Moreover Bernstein's sons and daughter speak the dialogue most affectingly....the power of the music is greatly enhanced by the spectacularly wide dynamic range of the recording.