I have spent the last week or so listening to Wonderful Town (the Donna Murphy version). This is my first exposure to it, and I wasn't crazy about the score. I chose it because my best friend is doing a local version up in San Jose this summer (as Wreck), and also West Side Story was my very first musical love. Unfortunately, Wonderful Town shows a much jazzier/swingy side of Leonard Bernstein that I didn't much care for. There are some very pretty ballads, and a couple of other cool things, but overall I was disappointed. (Do most people here love it?)
I saw the original on Broadway - with Roz Russell
I saw the revival with Donna Murphy - and she's no Roz Russell.
That said, the revival was vastly superior in one regard - Bernsteins's music was front and center as the star! (No pit, no electronic wizards sequestered on the seventh floor - lots of real live musicians, with glowing strings and shinny brass, and big bass drums - all sitting right up on risers across the entire upstage!) The glorious Bernstein orchestrations filled the theatre - you could reach out and touch the music!
In West Side Story you got the symphonic Bernstein (building up to Mass) - in Wonderful town you get the youthful Bernstein still frisky after Fancy Free and On The Town. By West Side Story Sputnik was circling the planet and teen-angst was in vogue. In Wonderful Town you have a simplistic joy in living, later seen peeking through in Candide.
der Brucer
Awaiting Larry and Jose picking me to pieces!