It has been a long standing practice in opera to have particular thematic material associated with particular persons, objects, or even ideas. Since Wagner these special themes have been known as "leitmotives". In West Side Story there are a number of leitmotives, but of course the most famous is the "Maria" motive.

 

Maria’s leitmotive is first introduced in the overture. We hear it next in the dance scene, when Maria and Tony first meet. We hear the leitmotive again at the precise moment Tony first looks at Maria. The scene immediately shifts to blackout, save for Tony and Maria (they "see only each other"), and in that transported state, they dance to Maria's theme presented as an airy cha-cha. Maria's leitmotive is then, of course, used as the basis of Tony's following song.

 

The song begins with Tony mesmerized by thoughts of the beautiful girl he had just kissed, the beautiful girl abruptly pulled away from him at the dance by her overly protective brother Bernardo. Tony repeats her name again and again.


The "Maria" motive is made up of a tritone which resolves upwards to a perfect fifth. One of the oldest melody writing rules states that leaps should be followed by stepwise motion in the opposite direction. Here, however, while we get the step, we do not get a change of direction. This ‘reaching upwards’ can be seen as not only a gesture of "aspiration," but it is a gesture which strains many of the conventions of melodic and harmonic syntax. In other words, it is not just hope, but hope of a markedly unconventional kind. In the dramatic context, the music says something along the lines of "Maria hopes for something one would not normally hope for." She hopes for a better life than what is typical of a poor Puerto-Rican immigrant. Perhaps, even, in that moment in the dancehall, that she hopes for Tony.