It was announced just two days prior: Kanye West would stage an opera at Art Basel on December 8. Directed by frequent West collaborator, artist Vanessa Beecroft, Mary is the latest in a string of religion-oriented works from the artist—from his gospel album Jesus Is King, to his cloistered Sunday services and his first opera, Nebuchadnezzar, which debuted last month at the Hollywood Bowl. (Today, West announced a second showing of the opera, at New York City's Lincoln Center on December 22.)

Mary opens with an assemblage of performers in flowing robes and silver face paint walking across a floating platform to a barge anchored in the water. Singers unleash their voices in unison; hymns radiate from the stage. West sits, obscured by the speakers, reading a Biblical account of the Virgin Mary’s encounter with the archangel Gabriel. In the crowd, people lift their hands into the air—many contain smartphones, but some are empty, raised in praise. Church, it seems, is in session.

Photo: Courtesy of Kanye West

After the performance, West meets with me at Cliff’s, a Jamaican restaurant near Miami Shores. Christmas decorations dangle above us, an array of red, blue, and green lights. He sits directly in front of me, ready to talk, so I listen. What he wants to discuss most is his faith, which he addresses with the passion he invests in everything—from fashion to his art—and without cynicism. It has enabled him, he says, to relish life more intensely. “I thought I had it all figured out,” says West, but none of it really satisfied him. God has changed “everything, my ego,” he says.

West, who once communicated his fears, anger, and passions in rap music, has done some reflecting on the genre. In rap, he says, you don’t hear a lot of scripture; these new pieces offer words and scenes directly from the Bible. He wants to use the grand medium of opera to make music that is a “beacon of light.” Or to be a channel for it: “God put it all together,” he says. “I’ll tell you what, when I don’t apply grace, I don’t get the results I’m looking for. Everything must be done with grace. That’s one of the things I pray for—and I need to pray for more.”