Prom 38: West Side Story, Royal Albert Hall, review: Musical magic but a lack of spirit in this precise production

We’ve been spoilt by John Wilson and his wonderful orchestra. Every year for almost a decade they have shimmied their way onto the Royal Albert Hall stage and, armed only with handfuls of musical sequins and plenty of razzle-dazzle, have stolen hearts and limelight with equal ease.

MGM musicals, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, even Frank Sinatra songs – all have come up gleaming under their loving touch, sepia-toned scores suddenly technicolour-brilliant. But this year something was missing. The musical magic of Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story was there alright, but something in the energy, the spirit of the thing felt lacking.

The main culprit seemed to be the authorised concert version of a piece whose performing rights are still heavily guarded and policed. To strip the show back to a lean 80 minutes of songs and minimal dialogue, sacrificing any sense of dramatic pacing or narrative is to place a burden on the music that it struggled to support. Director Stephen Whitson’s limited staging only helped emphasise what was missing. No character development, no real chorus (a phalanx of student performers were so distant from the action and so wilfully underused as to be almost superfluous) and above all no choreography robbed the work of its pulse, leaving it curiously limp, despite its outward rhythmic energy.

Wilson’s orchestra are a wonder though – strings chrome-shiny and sleek, brass jagged and full of attitude, tone smudged kohl-dark by saxophones and vibraphone. Violence and virtuosity met in the explosive brilliance of the dance episodes, and the Rumble played out in brutal, guttural exchanges, switchblade-sharp and just as deadly. And at the centre of it all were Mikaela Bennett’s Maria and Ross Lekites’ Tony – puppyishly and heartbreakingly innocent.

West Side Story is no My Fair Lady or even Oklahoma! It’s a rougher, tougher, dirtier creature altogether, a cut perpetually on its face and a curse on its lips – James Dean, not Frank Sinatra, Lana Turner not Doris Day. Wilson and his immaculate orchestra may do swagger and sincerity better than anyone else, but somewhere in the sheer precision of the thing, the all-out conviction, the cool factor is lost. Will you ever hear this score played better? Possibly not. But it left me hankering for something grubbier, grungier – a shot of bourbon in the rich musical milkshake.