Show Synopsis:
Two teenage gangs on the West Side of New York  -- the Puerto Rican Sharks and the white Jets -- plan a rumble for dominance on the streets. Riff, the leader of the Jets, convinces his friend Tony to come to the school dance where the rumble will be challenged, although Tony left the Jets awhile ago. At the dance, Tony meets and begins to fall for Maria, a Puerto Rican girl whose family wants her to marry Chino, a member of the Sharks. Maria's brother Bernardo pushes them away from each other, but Tony romances Maria from outside her apartment. Maria asks Tony to stop the rumble, and though Tony tries, Bernardo kills Riff and Tony kills Bernardo in retaliation. Chino relays this to Maria, who plans on running away with Tony. Maria tells her sister Anita how much she loves Tony, and Anita agrees to tell Tony to wait for Maria to run away with him. When Anita is berated by the Jets, she tells them that Chino has shot Maria out of spite. Tony asks Chino to shoot him so that he does not have to live without Maria and he dies in Maria's arms. The gangs end the feud and assemble together to take away Tony's body.

Character:
Soprano

Song Context:
Maria and Tony plan to run away together after Maria finds out that Tony killed Bernardo but realizes she loves him anyway.

Fun Facts:
1. This musical was loosely based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. 
2. This song contains musical phrases from Beethoven?s ?Emperor? Piano Concerto and Tchaikovsky?s Swan Lake. It was the basis of a ballet sequence in the stage show but became a love song for Tony to Maria in the 1961 film adaptation. 3. This melody was a favorite of Leonard Bernstein?s and he longed to find a use for it in West Side Story, although Stephen Sondheim found it difficult to write lyrics for.