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Bernstein's Mass celebrated at the Vatican

(November 2000)

This year has witnessed the celebrations for two millennia of Christianity, and this has in turn stimulated worldwide performances of Bernstein's Mass, the composer's highly individual response to the most significant of the church's liturgical celebrations.

There have been stagings and concert performances of Mass in America, Europe and Australia, many taking place in leading religious centres including Rouen Cathedral, the courtyard of Vilnius Cathedral, Santiago de Compostela and most significantly the Vatican in Rome.

This historic performance of Mass in the Sala Nervi, presented by the Festival di Pasqua and funded by the City of Rome, was relayed to the crowds in St Peter s Square via giant screens. The audience, numbering 8000, was fronted in the hall by a row of cardinals and, fitting with Vatican protocol, there was no dancing and no props, but the production by Enrico Castiglioni strongly captured the inner spirit of the work. Douglas Webster took the role of the all-too-human young priest, torn between his holy duties and the calls for "peace" from the streets."

"This "Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers" wore its colours openly and bravely from the start. It was Lenny's rallying cry to humankind in crisis... It was about those of us for whom faith was a tough call... How to reach them? How to include them? Through music of course. Through music crossing every cultural barrier... For all its uncomfortable questions, its edgy and disarming street-cred, Mass has only threatened the paranoid in political and religious circles... So this ambitious presentation, as part of the 2000 Jubilee, at last entered into the spirit of this Mass for all." The Independent

Illustration: from the poster for the Vatican performance of Bernstein's Mass

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