The only way to see Madonna’s full performance at the Met Gala earlier this year was to pay $30,000 for a ticket or to ask Sandra Bullock to sneak you in—at least, until now. On Thursday, Madonna marked her 60th birthday by releasing a video of the performance online, and it’s even more dramatic than we dreamed it would be. True to the ball’s theme, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination,” Madonna opened the set with a rendition of “Like a Prayer,” accompanied by chanting monks.
It only gets more theatrical from there: Madonna goes on to channel Joan of Arc while singing a new song, “Beautiful Game,” which contains the lyrics “It’s a beautiful game/ That I’ve never learned/ People tell me to shut my mouth/ That I might get burned.” She concludes with a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that turns into a processional, cut together with shots of medieval art and close-ups of Madonna casting her eyes skyward. The result is a display of pageantry worthy of the Catholic Church.
