Leonard Bernstein conducts West Side Story

Controversial as an essential Carreras recording, West Side Story isn't an opera, and neither is the tenor, operatic star José Carreras, an American-born Broadway singer. But the music is operatic in quality--let's say in durability. It is Bernstein's most established masterpiece, his surest claim to be remembered as a composer a century from now; the source is Shakespeare and the music has a seriousness, color, and intensity worthy of its subject. And this recording represents the way the composer wanted it to sound, with his choice of the best available voices. Carreras sounds like he was born to sing "Something's Coming," "Maria," and "Tonight." Perhaps he was born to sing them in Spanish, but opera lovers regularly take bigger language problems than that in stride for the sake of vocal quality. --Joe McLellan