leonard bernstein kicks mASS

I went to the culminating concert of the Minnesota Orchestra's Bernstein Festival last night. Since Osmo Vänskä programs everything but "business as usual", he decided that the orchestra would fully stage Bernstein's massive MASS (pun intended). This was one of the most interesting things I've ever seen.

It was commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1971 to help celebrate the opening of Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center and, in true Bernstein fashion, it's anything but just a regular Catholic mass. (Check out the wikipedia entry on it if you're interested.) Since it's scored for augmented orchestra, SATB chorus, boys chorus, dancers and a singing/dancing group of street performers it's obviously not staged very often...and rarely by performers of the caliber I saw last night.

There were over 250 people on stage with the combined forces of the Minnesota Orchestra, the Minnesota Chorale, the Minnesota Boychoir and the James Sewell Ballet alongside the 20 singers/actors in the "Street Chorus". They actually had to extend the stage 21 feet into the seats in order to accomodate all of the performers (the furthest they've ever done since Orchestra Hall opened in 1974).

But the star of the show was undoubtedly the Celebrant (portrayed by local baritone Raymond Ayers). I'm hard-pressed to think of a more demanding role than this and he pulled it off perfectly. Think of your lead role in any Broadway musical, then take away any sort of conventional plot, add a whole bunch of other stuff (like the fact that he has to play the piano at one point) and then bring in the fact that he carries almost the entire thing on his shoulders. I can't even begin to think about how much he must have had to memorize.

Here's a YouTube video of the "Agnus Dei" movement from a performance in Latvia. Bernstein leaves out all the reverence and mutates the Latin into a vicious, taunting invocation. The video ends before the proceedings turn really sour on the Celebrant (the guy in the robes) and they start whipping him while the entire orchestra and rock band play a blues riff that adds to the violence. It drives him so out of his sorts that he smashes the sacrament on the floor. Either way, you can tell there is a lot of intensity that permeates any production of this piece.


I'm a huge Bernstein fan (Chichester Psalms, his symphonies...even Prelude, Fugue and Riffs) and I've known this piece since I performed the "Sanctus" back in 2000. Needless to say, it was great to see it so beautifully staged and performed. I had no idea something could be so violent, affirming, sarcastic, compelling, taunting and beautiful at the same time. I was really pissed that I couldn't get a few black market snapshots off.

Oh well.

We miss you, Maestro Bernstein.






I wonder if he would still be alive today if he hadn't been a lifelong, heavy smoker.