Gee, That's Good
I've posted videos periodically from the BBC Proms, and here's another wonderful one, this from the 2015 edition.
For all the great songs in West Side Story, I've always especially loved "Gee, Officer Krupke." Not that it's the best song in the score, but just one that I always love hearing. Infectious music and wildly-clever lyrics.
I must admit, I didn't necessarily expect to hear such a terrific version of the song from four Brits in tuxedos. But they nail it. It's helped, too, by having the Proms Chorus augmenting it all -- not front-and-center, taking over the song (it has to be the four street punks, period), but adding a bit of richness when the number is helped by it in the refrain parts.
One quibble. My favorite part of the song is the build-up at the end, the begins with "The trouble is he's crazy" that leads to the moment when they finally break back into singing with the explosive "Krupke, we've got troubles of our own!" And builds from there. The issue is that that beginning lines of this passage are supposed to be spoken, and instead they sing it. And singing, while perfectly understandable, doesn't give it the emotional sense of urgency and power that's intended.
By the way, I feel justified in saying that it's "supposed to be" spoken because on both the original Broadway cast recording AND on the original movie soundtrack -- each of which, I'm sure, Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein oversaw meticulously how the songs were done (especially Sondheim who would correct a singer if they put a breath in the wrong place, and Leonard Bernstein couldn't have been far behind) -- that full passage is spoken. And if it's what they wanted on the original Broadway cast album and the Oscar-winning Best Picture soundtrack (and it's what I love...), then that's what I'm going to go with as how the passage is most dramatic.
Other than that, it's a excellent performance. And the very end of the "crescendo finale" is especially-helped by having a full chorus there.
One little note on the performers. Two of them (the two on the far-right as you look at the screen) appear to brothers -- Matthew Seadon-Young and David Seadon-Young. Not only does it seem highly unlikely that two such uncommon last names singing together wouldn't be brothers...but near the end, pay attention to the line, "My brother wears a dress," because one of the fellows looks at the other with a sarcastic motion. For the record, the other two singers are Stewart Matthew Price and Jack North.
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