Bernstein MASS
7:30 pm
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
Mostly Mozart Festival
Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center
New York, New York, United States of America
Conductor Louis Langrée, the Festival Orchestra, baritone Nmon Ford, and a huge cast of singers, musicians, and dancers celebrate Leonard Bernstein with a fully staged production of his bold 1971 MASS.
Born of the Vietnam War era, MASS is an endlessly inventive dramatic happening and case study in eclecticism, with rock, gospel, and Broadway songwriter Stephen Schwartz’s “Simple Song” woven together with tone rows, marches, and chorales. At its heart, MASS portrays a deeply personal crisis of faith, embodied by the central figure of the Celebrant (Ford). In this New York production premiere directed by SF Opera Lab curator Elkhanah Pulitzer, Bernstein’s spirited artifact of the Age of Aquarius enters a new millennium.
