Notice how Jose Carerras sings the opening line "Make of our hands one hand" on one breath, smoothly, legato. Another singer would have taken a breath between "hands" and "one hand". Bernstein clearly envisioned his WSS music as an opera and so wanted it to be reality that he chose the best tenor, not the best American tenor, but the best tenor, Spanish accent or not. He is a true opera tenor.
This particular recording is my favorite. It brings me to tears every time. The amount of control both singers have, especially when singing softly, their expression and phrasing, and when Dame Kiri was ascending towards the end...goosebumps! Such a pure and beautiful love song ❤
What did I just see? I haven't stopped crying. I want to see it again but I don't think my pushing 80 self has the stamina. That was glorious. That was as if someone showed me something secret and sacred. I know all the words. I can conduct and hit the end of every song. But to watch Maestro Bernstein - OMG! To watch and hear your voice which I particularly adore, leaves me drained and breathless. Thank you Dame Kiri❣️🎼🎵🎶
I had the huge privilege of seeing both these great artists sing live at CoventGarden many times. It makes me so happy that Bernstein was able to work with them both on his great masterpiece. That he got to hear the most perfect rendition of which the human voice is capable.
I too saw this documentary circa 1982 when I was 17 years old. It continues to move me now just like it did back then. The songs deserve the operatic voices. WSS is my favourite musical, took my lady to Paris last year to see Joe McNeeley's touring production. Unbelievable. No other musical can hold a light to it.
Bernstein, genius, great musician. It destroyed him and me too. I watched/listened to this when BBc screened it in early eighties, wife and I enjoyed it. She passed away a year later and the next time I watched this duet, without her, it certainly broke me up and perhaps only then did I come to terms with my loss. Still does, thirty years later. Perfection, does justice to and enhances both words (Sondheim) and Bernstein's music. Far superior to the film version though that's good too.
CelticMorning: Dude, that deserves a better canvas than RUclips! Our scars are what make us men, and you baring such a scar helps the rest of us when we, too, face the inevitable. Thank you!
Hi there. I am a born again Christian, and for some reason I heard this song in my heart today after doing a video about what the Bible says about marriage. This is just absolutely beautiful. I know Mr. Bernstein was Jewish, and Jesus is the Jewish Messiah who came to save the whole world for anyone who would believe in His death, burial and resurrrection and call on His name to be saved. This world is in chaos, and if you have never read the bestselling book of all time (the Bible), I suggest you read the book of Revelation at the end to see what is happening in the future as well as Matthew 24. God bless.
Common... always christians wanting to save everyone. We need no god for feel love, we need no messiah for feel us complete, and we need no one to save us. It is just love, human love, and the intense feeling of wanting to be one with the other. If god existed nothing would change at all, the feeling is there. And yes, the world is in chaos, what is the problem with that? Everything changes and the future is unknown, why the necesity of the platonic conecpt? Is the cry of the fearfuls, that is christianity, a world full of people that want an eternal thing for helping them morally and ethically, because do not want to acept the inevitability of death and oblivion. Also, by the way, Euclid's Elements is also a best selling book, and people do not mind. Popularity does not mean validation, maybe aesthecally beautifull, but no truethness.
Kiri Te Kanawa is so beautiful... first time i saw and heard her it was the Le Nozze di Figaro with Herman Prey, Mirella Freni, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau... so on :))
Did Verdi, Puccini or Wagner ever write anything to rival this? I think not. West Side Story is one of the great operas of the 20th century. No snide remarks about it being just a musical please. Bernstein pulls every trick in the book but the whole is still MUCH greater than the sum of the parts. I have reservations about Jose & Dame Super Kiwi in these roles but for 'Make of our Hands', all sins are forgiven. Brings me to tears every time.
you're entitled to your opinion and although WSS is a terrific play and musical with beautiful songs and emotion Bernstein was not in the class of the great opera composers. Even he admits that here during a break in the rehearsal saying well only mozart looks less worn then me but who's in that class? Guys like Verdi Mozart, ect wrote dozens of operas ( which are much more difficult to write and perform), Verdi wrote Falstaff in his 80s. Bernstein only composed 6 musicals.
Che bello vedere le immagini di quando si registra, Carreras un pò in tensione, canta spesso con il pugno stretto, la Te Kanawa più disinvolta (grande artista), cerca di "stargli vicino" con lo sguardo (min 1:44). Perdonatemi, ma in quello sguardo vedo lo sguardo di una madre che segue con emozione il proprio figlio... Questa è la musica, emozioni indescrivibili che ti travolgono ...
Ahahahah so funny the moment from 3:15 to 3:20 when Jose Carreras didn't hold the note long enough on the " heart" and Kiri te Kanawa looks at him anxiously while he does oh whatever!!!
Hogwash. This is a recording session for a studio album, *not* a public performance or even an on-book rehearsal for later staged or filmed performance. The singers and Bernstein are going for pure sound, not playing to the camera or the human eye. These are opera singers; they are well capable of acting with their bodies. But body language, gestures and such are lost in the intended product, meaning the album. That much of the recording sessions for the album was filmed for a documentary about the making of the album (a clip of which we see here) is incidental and even irrelevant to the performers' performances here.
Can't agree with that sorry. Performance ballet. Opera, dance acting singing etc shouldl be about passion and emotion body language and gestures as you rightly mention just dont see that here and I can't fault the performance or the singers and the excellence of Bernstein
@@alastairjinks6966 plenty of emotion in it you can see both singers putting themselves into the right mental place to convey the emotion perfectly, a recording studio is all about getting that perfection with absolutely no extraneous movement, the person they needed to see in this case was their conductor.
Qué gracioso, Karajan dirigiendo a los músicos y Carreras dirigiendo a Karajan. ¿Habrá tenido que ver esa actitud de Carreras con la bronca que Karajan le echó al tenor durante unos ensayos de West Side Story? ruclips.net/video/z85iqfprcRI/видео.html
I was just thinking the same thing. I haven't listened to this version in years. I think the voices in the original film suit it better. But who are we to dispute Bernstein himself!
That's a thing with a lot of Opera. It's technically the human voice at its best, but it frequently sounds over the top. It doesn't feel real. I admire their voices, but I don't feel like I'm hearing teenagers in the throes of passion promising to die for each other.
Lovely, but laid on a bit too thick. Listen to the movie version, and you will hear a simpler, sweeter, less-operatic version that captures the innocence of the lovers. In particular the spoken vows are more natural and heartfelt.
I disagree. I think this review of the more recent recording of "West Side Story" by the San Francisco Opera sums it up "Although he would never dream of saying so, Michael Tilson Thomas's new live concert recording of West Side Story can almost be seen as a corrective to Leonard Bernstein's own symphonic version of the show from 1985. That controversial release had, as one might expect, spectacular instrumental playing from a full-sized pickup orchestra but was widely criticized for its casting of opera singers (José Carreras, Kiri Te Kanawa, Tatiana Troyanos) who were wrong for the leading roles and had seemingly little affinity for the musical-theater idiom. Tilson Thomas's recording finds the happy medium: his San Francisco Symphony gives this magnificent musical the full symphonic heft it deserves, but he has cast (as he puts it in the accompanying interview) singing actors, all of whom hit the stylistic nail on the head, sounding superbly musical on one hand, completely natural and unaffected on the other. This makes the point that West Side Story can have sweep, weight and the loftiest of artistic standards without top-heavy, anti-vernacular voices that just don't fit the setting of the piece."
@@chocolatesouljah Yet Bernstein's account on this video of his own daughter's honest reaction after the last take of this "One Hand, One Heart" would seem to render such a review as irrelevant or simply an opinion piece.
You're joking, right? Bel canto is probably what Bernstein was envisioning when he wrote "West Side Story." The last note. I've never had chills like that.
This is lovely, but too opera-like. In the movie it was more simple and more heart felt. You can't even understand the words when these two sing it. But it is a lovely piece.
Love the way kiri smiles at him at the opening
Que suavidade de vozes!!!
Just love the wow-moment around 1:44 when Kiri looks at Jose, and thinks like: is this guy for real?
I love how Bernstein gives the players approving looks when he is pleased....as a musician that must be the ultimate affirmation.
I love the voice of the great Tiri Te Kanawa. Is simply beautiful.
Notice how Jose Carerras sings the opening line "Make of our hands one hand" on one breath, smoothly, legato. Another singer would have taken a breath between "hands" and "one hand". Bernstein clearly envisioned his WSS music as an opera and so wanted it to be reality that he chose the best tenor, not the best American tenor, but the best tenor, Spanish accent or not. He is a true opera tenor.
That's barely 10 sec's, not so difficult, in fact, very easy...
You can’t sing the phrase with a breath and break in the middle, unless you are trying .
But I’m curious as to why Bernstein gave Jose such a hard time throughout this production.
Definitely the best version of this glorious Bernstein composition that I have ever listened to.
I love watching Jose Carerras work, creating beauty.
This particular recording is my favorite. It brings me to tears every time. The amount of control both singers have, especially when singing softly, their expression and phrasing, and when Dame Kiri was ascending towards the end...goosebumps! Such a pure and beautiful love song ❤
What did I just see? I haven't stopped crying. I want to see it again but I don't think my pushing 80 self has the stamina. That was glorious. That was as if someone showed me something secret and sacred. I know all the words. I can conduct and hit the end of every song. But to watch Maestro Bernstein - OMG! To watch and hear your voice which I particularly adore, leaves me drained and breathless. Thank you Dame Kiri❣️🎼🎵🎶
What a beautiful, passionate song, sung by two consummate singers! This song was sung at our wedding as we exchanged our vows.
Wow! Bet there wasn't a dry eye in the whole place! It truly is one of the most romantic tunes ever written.
And at ours. We lasted 58 years but my wife died a few months ago. Will I be sble to sing this as I scatter her ashes?
I had the huge privilege of seeing both these great artists sing live at CoventGarden many times. It makes me so happy that Bernstein was able to work with them both on his great masterpiece. That he got to hear the most perfect rendition of which the human voice is capable.
Just beautiful both Kiri and Carreras.
I too saw this documentary circa 1982 when I was 17 years old. It continues to move me now just like it did back then. The songs deserve the operatic voices. WSS is my favourite musical, took my lady to Paris last year to see Joe McNeeley's touring production. Unbelievable. No other musical can hold a light to it.
Bernstein, genius, great musician. It destroyed him and me too. I watched/listened to this when BBc screened it in early eighties, wife and I enjoyed it. She passed away a year later and the next time I watched this duet, without her, it certainly broke me up and perhaps only then did I come to terms with my loss. Still does, thirty years later. Perfection, does justice to and enhances both words (Sondheim) and Bernstein's music. Far superior to the film version though that's good too.
CelticMorning j
CelticMorning: Dude, that deserves a better canvas than RUclips! Our scars are what make us men, and you baring such a scar helps the rest of us when we, too, face the inevitable. Thank you!
Music at our wedding in 1969. My beloved gone, like yours, but "even death won't part us now"
The most heartbreaking, emotional duet . So love the way it is sung here.....so controlled !
at 1:44 we all thought it but Kiri Te Kanawa confirmed it for us.
the scale up by the d
Dame Kiri @4:52 and her sustained note till the end and Mr. Carraras' scale down gave me goose bumps!
Beautiful, the best song in WSS - dare I say. So simple, pure
Hi there. I am a born again Christian, and for some reason I heard this song in my heart today after doing a video about what the Bible says about marriage. This is just absolutely beautiful. I know Mr. Bernstein was Jewish, and Jesus is the Jewish Messiah who came to save the whole world for anyone who would believe in His death, burial and resurrrection and call on His name to be saved. This world is in chaos, and if you have never read the bestselling book of all time (the Bible), I suggest you read the book of Revelation at the end to see what is happening in the future as well as Matthew 24. God bless.
Common... always christians wanting to save everyone. We need no god for feel love, we need no messiah for feel us complete, and we need no one to save us. It is just love, human love, and the intense feeling of wanting to be one with the other. If god existed nothing would change at all, the feeling is there. And yes, the world is in chaos, what is the problem with that? Everything changes and the future is unknown, why the necesity of the platonic conecpt? Is the cry of the fearfuls, that is christianity, a world full of people that want an eternal thing for helping them morally and ethically, because do not want to acept the inevitability of death and oblivion. Also, by the way, Euclid's Elements is also a best selling book, and people do not mind. Popularity does not mean validation, maybe aesthecally beautifull, but no truethness.
This is lovely and made me a fan of Carreras all those years ago
...a historic remake...Bernstein had to practically pull Carreras teeth throughout this remake of west Side Story...and it paid off
The second great ballad in WSS Kiri just awesome, listen again and again. I'm a fan.
Kiri Te Kanawa, a Queen of Voice
This incredibly beautiful song could not be sung better than these two artist's amazing rendition. Takes me to another (better) world!
More than beautiful! Heart-stopping.... Bravo Te Kanawa/ Carreras/ Bernstein
♥️ Jose
When I get married someday I wanna sing this song to my husband
Do it, I have regrets about not singing to my husband on our day.
With you all. Don't regret anything in life. Rejoice in the words and share it. Lorraine...sing it to him now.
Did you do it
Berstein is acting as a musical conduit here, feeling, sensing, living the music as he conducts. You can clearly see this on his face.
..stunningly beautiful..
I love this Artists and this record. We dont remember you, Lenny.
One Hand, One Heart.....The foundation of love!
Rest in Peace ☮️🕊️ Stephen Sondheim! Merry Christmas ⛄🎄 Blessings and Hugs 💖💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕!
Eternal, heavenly...
Love it so so much. Where's time going .....since 1984....
Still music of eternity ..all ..❤️
Stunning. Simply stunning.
Bernstein. Musical genius
Breathtakingly beautiful song, equally well sung.
The emotional involvement was tremendous.
One of my favorites, merry Christmas, everybody
wow...........her voice is amazing.
A thing of beauty for sure
Who said that clarinet should not use vibrato???? Absolutely beautiful this clarinet sound in the intro.
La canción de amor más bella que he escuchado ❤
Dreamteam! 🥰💖
tears...
So wonderful, This is how this sort of music should be sung and played !
GENIUS. Beautiful song, amazing orchestra, excelent singers. Everything perfect.
I still have this recording on VHS tape and still makes me tingle, this recording it’s so, cannot be ever be,,,,,,,,,,
Simply beautiful
perfection - that tempo! 😩 makes me melt
Kiri te kanawa, maravillosa
Feras de vozes!!!
It is so....wondetful...for ever...ever
ythank you.....❤❤💕
Kiri looks disappointed that she didn’t hold that last note just a little longer. To me it was perfect
Perhaps. The way I saw it, she was glad that she was able to catch her breath before she ran out of it.
Beautiful
faultless singers, but it just doesn't have the same feeling as Jim Bryant and Marni Nixon
This is great. World class and one of my favourite pieces with Kiri, who I love.
This (video, song and performance) is so awesome. Thank-you so much for uploading it.
Kiri Te Kanawa is so beautiful... first time i saw and heard her it was the Le Nozze di Figaro with Herman Prey, Mirella Freni, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau... so on :))
So beautiful
Keep the one who look at you like Te Kanawa look at Carreras
THAT LOOK 1:43
The voices of God.
Amazing. Powerful.
Brilliant what can you say, can never be repeated
Absolutely lovely!
😭😭😭 So beautiful
And in the end, we were all just humans, drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.”― Christopher Poindexter
.
.
.
.
.
Will
José Carreras, con su voz de terciopelo..
Interpretación maravillosa
Can you imagine if they had video recording in Mozart's day and we could see him conducting Anton Stadler in the clarinet concerto or quintet?
Wow, what a thought!
What a wonderful thought, already this is busting me into tears but having an original Mozart recording, wow!
beautifull
Beautiful!
Monikaelise Hervorragend Kiri und Jose! Besser kann man den Part nicht singen.
Tops.
Excellent!
Did Verdi, Puccini or Wagner ever write anything to rival this? I think not. West Side Story is one of the great operas of the 20th century. No snide remarks about it being just a musical please. Bernstein pulls every trick in the book but the whole is still MUCH greater than the sum of the parts. I have reservations about Jose & Dame Super Kiwi in these roles but for 'Make of our Hands', all sins are forgiven. Brings me to tears every time.
you're entitled to your opinion and although WSS is a terrific play and musical with beautiful songs and emotion Bernstein was not in the class of the great opera composers. Even he admits that here during a break in the rehearsal saying well only mozart looks less worn then me but who's in that class? Guys like Verdi Mozart, ect wrote dozens of operas ( which are much more difficult to write and perform), Verdi wrote Falstaff in his 80s. Bernstein only composed 6 musicals.
Che bello vedere le immagini di quando si registra, Carreras un pò in tensione, canta spesso con il pugno stretto, la Te Kanawa più disinvolta (grande artista), cerca di "stargli vicino" con lo sguardo (min 1:44). Perdonatemi, ma in quello sguardo vedo lo sguardo di una madre che segue con emozione il proprio figlio... Questa è la musica, emozioni indescrivibili che ti travolgono ...
l modo in cui lei lo guardava era dolce. Ho notato troppo.
Oh what a nice rendition of this song...I'd like to see Gianluca Ginoble and Laura Bretan do a duet together on this song.
La grabación está incompleta!
Yo pensaba que primero gravaban la música, y posteriormente montaban las voces
Su
Sublime
Ahahahah so funny the moment from 3:15 to 3:20 when Jose Carreras didn't hold the note long enough on the " heart" and Kiri te Kanawa looks at him anxiously while he does oh whatever!!!
he held the note fine
Technically perfect but supposed to be gazing into each others eyes and tell it through body language, gestures as well as words
Hogwash. This is a recording session for a studio album, *not* a public performance or even an on-book rehearsal for later staged or filmed performance. The singers and Bernstein are going for pure sound, not playing to the camera or the human eye. These are opera singers; they are well capable of acting with their bodies. But body language, gestures and such are lost in the intended product, meaning the album. That much of the recording sessions for the album was filmed for a documentary about the making of the album (a clip of which we see here) is incidental and even irrelevant to the performers' performances here.
Can't agree with that sorry. Performance ballet. Opera, dance acting singing etc shouldl be about passion and emotion body language and gestures as you rightly mention just dont see that here and I can't fault the performance or the singers and the excellence of Bernstein
@@alastairjinks6966 you have completely missed marysue’s point.
@@alastairjinks6966 plenty of emotion in it you can see both singers putting themselves into the right mental place to convey the emotion perfectly, a recording studio is all about getting that perfection with absolutely no extraneous movement, the person they needed to see in this case was their conductor.
In the context of what this piece this is then I see your point of view,
Qué gracioso, Karajan dirigiendo a los músicos y Carreras dirigiendo a Karajan. ¿Habrá tenido que ver esa actitud de Carreras con la bronca que Karajan le echó al tenor durante unos ensayos de West Side Story? ruclips.net/video/z85iqfprcRI/видео.html
Is Bernsstein the conductor or Tony xD
hoog kippenvelgehalte.
Das mikrophone übersteuert, aber sonst ganz nett
Am i the only one who hates their voices with this? The characters are supposed to teens, not opera stars.
I was just thinking the same thing. I haven't listened to this version in years. I think the voices in the original film suit it better. But who are we to dispute Bernstein himself!
That's a thing with a lot of Opera. It's technically the human voice at its best, but it frequently sounds over the top. It doesn't feel real. I admire their voices, but I don't feel like I'm hearing teenagers in the throes of passion promising to die for each other.
what year?
Bernstein seems very frustrated throughout...why?
Because he can hear imperfection as we 'mortals' can't
Hogwash
...and we 'mortals' can also be dumbasses lol
k
Lovely, but laid on a bit too thick. Listen to the movie version, and you will hear a simpler, sweeter, less-operatic version that captures the innocence of the lovers. In particular the spoken vows are more natural and heartfelt.
pity you don't know much about opera to me this was perfect dont forget mr bernstein is a genious and picked the right two people for this
Actually he said that this was the worst cast ever hhehehe
I disagree. I think this review of the more recent recording of "West Side Story" by the San Francisco Opera sums it up "Although he would never dream of saying so, Michael Tilson Thomas's new live concert recording of West Side Story can almost be seen as a corrective to Leonard Bernstein's own symphonic version of the show from 1985. That controversial release had, as one might expect, spectacular instrumental playing from a full-sized pickup orchestra but was widely criticized for its casting of opera singers (José Carreras, Kiri Te Kanawa, Tatiana Troyanos) who were wrong for the leading roles and had seemingly little affinity for the musical-theater idiom.
Tilson Thomas's recording finds the happy medium: his San Francisco Symphony gives this magnificent musical the full symphonic heft it deserves, but he has cast (as he puts it in the accompanying interview) singing actors, all of whom hit the stylistic nail on the head, sounding superbly musical on one hand, completely natural and unaffected on the other. This makes the point that West Side Story can have sweep, weight and the loftiest of artistic standards without top-heavy, anti-vernacular voices that just don't fit the setting of the piece."
ferociousgumby I agree.
@@chocolatesouljah Yet Bernstein's account on this video of his own daughter's honest reaction after the last take of this "One Hand, One Heart" would seem to render such a review as irrelevant or simply an opinion piece.
lovely--but too operatic-they certainly don't sound like teen age lovers in the Bronx--
Kiri looked a little bit bored about the long intro ^^ :-)
This is where operatic renditions of Broadway music always fail. Bel Canto doesn't work here.
You're joking, right?
Bel canto is probably what Bernstein was envisioning when he wrote "West Side Story."
The last note. I've never had chills like that.
This is lovely, but too opera-like. In the movie it was more simple and more heart felt. You can't even understand the words when these two sing it. But it is a lovely piece.
Was eine scheisse