Ego, art laid bare in 'Mass'

It remains a jumble of internal contradictions and naked overachievement, an expression of personal crisis and radical politics. In all its raw ambition and zeal, "Mass" best symbolizes the struggle of Leonard Bernstein. "West Side Story" was far more popular, the Jeremiah symphony more coherent and the Chicester Psalms lyrically purer, but Bernstein was never more personal than in the 1971 extravaganza that defies definition and left some critics and audiences cold with its hip pretensions and refusal to fit into a musical genre.

This week, Bernstein's masterpiece comes to life in rare professional performances. The Minnesota Orchestra, the Minnesota Chorale, James Sewell Ballet, Minnesota Boychoir and a 20-voice Street Chorus -- more than 200 artists -- will give voice to the story of a priest in the throes of a faith dilemma. Baritone Raymond Ayers portrays the celebrant, who inhabits the same psychic space Bernstein seemed to occupy during that American moment when politics and culture came unhinged.

Consider the factors in play when Bernstein sat down to compose this "Theater Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers." His celebrity had gone toxic in the wake of "Radical Chic," Tom Wolfe's devastating account of the Black Panther fundraiser hosted by Felicia Bernstein in 1970. He deeply perceived the stakes of writing something monumental in order to christen the new center in Washington, D.C., honoring President John F. Kennedy. He would show the skeptics, overwhelm them with a revolutionary piece of breadth and impact.

Bernstein was in that precarious space that an artist enters, where total commitment and invulnerability mix with fragility. Jamie, one of Bernstein's three children, calls it "The Golden Blind Spot," a temporary madness into which the creator plunges, girded only with the illusion that he or she is changing the world.

"When my father was writing 'Mass,' he would come back to the house from his studio and throw a piece of paper on the piano and say, 'Listen to what I just wrote!' " Jamie Bernstein said in a recent interview. "And he would pound it out and whatever we might have thought of it, the thing to say was, 'Wow, that's really great,' because you had to be supportive of him in the middle of it.

"Just today we were talking -- my brother and sister -- how there is a very fine line between being a creative artist and being a victim of OCD" (obsessive-compulsive disorder).

Initial reaction lukewarm

The reaction broke Bernstein's heart, said Jamie Bernstein. How could the world not have loved something that he loved so much? How could they not understand what he was saying and doing? Why could they not trust that he knew what he was doing -- that if the music defied structure, it was because that's how he saw America?

"He took it hard, and it stayed with him forever," said Jamie Bernstein. "It really made things difficult for him in New York. People were automatically uncharitable with him. It was only abroad that he would get the respect and adulation a person would hope for."

As a result, she said, Bernstein chased his celebrity around the globe, engaging in the less-risky work of conducting. Even though the travel and scheduled exhausted him, it was preferable to the alternative.

"If he was home, alone, staying up late at night staring at his demons, trying to compose, everything would come crashing down on him," Jamie Bernstein said. "That was hard and painful, so conducting was a wonderful way to escape all that."

Enjoying a Renaissance

Last fall, she attended two performances of "Mass" presented in New York by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Marin Alsop. Whether it was to avoid speaking ill of the dead (Bernstein died in 1990 at age 72) or because the world has caught up with his musical iconoclasm, critics sheathed their swords. A staging at the United Palace Theater, which included 500 schoolchildren, particularly wowed onlookers, less for its virtuosity than its human scale. Jamie Bernstein called it one of the great experiences of her life.

"Their enthusiasm and excitement and youthful energy were everything my father ever meant," she said. "And everybody knew it, that this is what he meant."

Robert Neu, the Minnesota Orchestra's general manager, also attended the New York shows. Neu, who is staging the performance in Minneapolis, said the notion persists that "Mass" remains a square peg in a round hole, noting that Bernstein himself said he didn't know if the piece belonged on the Broadway stage, the concert hall or the opera stage.

"But I'm surprised there are still questions about it because I think we're more used to the hybrid," he said. " 'Sweeney Todd,' for example, is a Broadway musical that's done in a lot of opera houses."

Beyond the music and theatricality, however, Neu (who describes himself as a Bernstein fanatic) feels that "Mass" remains urgent today. The crisis of faith, in religion and in society, has reared its head in 2009 America; the desire for peace has expressed itself in many ways during the past five years, and the intentional diversity Bernstein wrote into "Mass" continues to work itself into a society that just elected its first black president. Neu said he believes it will continue to hold up and perhaps even grow in appreciation. Jamie Bernstein, who has seen the piece about a dozen times, agrees.