Mass

People celebrate mass together. The celebrant greets the worshippers, and to start with, everything is as harmonious as usual. But little by little, the crowd begins to doubt the meaning and purpose of the practiced rituals that have nothing to do with reality, and authentic actions in the here and now are urgently called for. Entangling himself in contradictions, the celebrant is unable to quash the rebellion, and the ceremony collapses. From amidst the chaos, everyone involved now needs to find their way back to a belief. And there are no easy answers here…

Leonard Bernstein wrote his »Mass« in 1971, at the time of the »flower power« movement and at the height of the Cold War, for the inauguration of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D. C., mercilessly bringing traditional ritual into a headlong collision with the existential questions motivating a society that was still young. Musically his work sweeps aside all the familiar boundaries between genres and combines almost all musical styles, from church chorales and gospel through twelve-tone music and American marches to rock 'n' roll, blues and swing, celebrating the ideal of an open, giving, sharing being – which is more topical than ever in times like ours!

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