LEONARD BERNSTEIN: MASS / OMER MEIR WELLBER

A large orchestra, three choirs and over 200 performers from singers and dancers to a rock band: Leonard Bernstein’s »Mass« defies all dimensions. With this performance, Hamburg’s new General Music Director Omer Meir Wellber continues the tradition of spectacular special productions at the Hamburg International Music Festival.
It may sound absurd, but in 1971 the FBI actually warned the U.S. president ahead of the premiere of Bernstein’s »Mass«. The times were too volatile – marked by the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the assassination of John F. Kennedy – and the content too sensitive. Rather than a conventional setting of the Catholic Mass, the work became a genre-defying performance piece that deconstructs the liturgy and transforms it into a political demonstration. Latin chants give way to gospel, cool jazz, rock, marching band music, Broadway swing, Indian ragas and expressionist avant-garde. Between ritual and rebellion emerges a monumental sonic mosaic that culminates in an overwhelming cry for peace.

Omer Meir Wellber, General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera, brings the most ambitious production of this year’s festival to the Elbphilharmonie – and, on Sunday at noon, as a live video broadcast to the St Michaelis church lawn. There, all participants and audience come together afterwards for a creative outdoor celebration with music, food, performances and workshops.

PERFORMERS

Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg orchestra

Audi Jugendchorakademie choir

Hamburger Alsterspatzen choir

Hamburger Knabenchor choir

Street People

Aphrodite Patoulidou soprano

Will Liverman baritone

Omer Meir Wellber conductor

Alexander Radulescu scenic design, video

Constantin Trommlitz choreography

Janina Zell script

Lucilla Schmidinger script

Pascal Adoumbou choir director and rehearsal Street People

Martin Steidler choir rehearsal Audi Jugendchorakademie

Priscilla Prueter choir rehearsal Alsterspatzen

Luiz de Godoy choir rehearsal Hamburger Knabenchor

PROGRAM

Leonard Bernstein
MASS