The power of the arts to fuse disparate creative impulses into one compelling aesthetic experience is on full display in Uwe Scholz’s choreographic masterpiece The Great Mass. The ballet is bound to the Catholic mass, and draws its structure and its name from a particular musical setting of that genre: Mozart’s unfinished Great Mass in C minor, K. 427. Scholz then incorporates other pieces by Mozart (for example, Adagio and Fugue in C minor and the motet Ave verum corpus), Gregorian chant, sequences from contemporary music by György Kurtág, Thomas Jahn and Arvo Pärt, and readings of poems by Paul Celan. A captivating Gesamtkunstwerk that functions as requiem for its creator, who died at the age of 45, a year after its initial production.

The 2005 production of The Great Mass in Leipzig brought together an all-star team: the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig conducted by Balázs Kocsár, the Leipzig Ballet, and the Chor der Oper Leipzig directed by Stefan Bilz, joined by soloists Eunyee You, Marie-Claude Chappuis, Werner Güra, and Friedemann Röhlig. Production, choreography, set, and costumes were all designed by the master himself, Uwe Scholz.