Something has come! A listening guide to West Side Story
Lecturer Lorenzo Puliti
Florence – FI, Italy
Benedictine College, Villa Morghen, Via Feliceto 8
Thursday 29 March 2012

The lecture is a listening guide to the musical "West Side Story" (written by Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents and Stephen Sondheim) conceived for the students of the Benedictine College. Musical recordings, footage of the film version, projection of slides, and dialogues from the libretto will be used in order to empathize with the story and to understand the meaning of the entire musical work. In particular, the lecture will be focused on the role of the music in the play, and how the music expresses the emotions of the characters and the events performed on stage. A brief introduction will be devoted to how the musical was conceived and created by the four authors.

The presentation focuses on 5 West Side Story musical numbers: Something's Coming (film version), Maria (original Broadway cast), Tonight (original Broadway cast), Tonight Quintet (film version), and Somewhere (version with symphony orchestra, Leonard Bernstein conductor, Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras voice soloists).

The lecture is addressed to the students and teachers of the Benedictine College, and is not open to the general public.

Lorenzo Puliti, author and editor of the presentation texts.