Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler/Boston Ballet

The Boston Ballet's presentation of choreographer John Neumeier's Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler runs until November 1 at the Boston Opera House. For both dance lovers and those who admire Mahler, this is a unique opportunity: no ballet company in North America has attempted this ballet before. And the Boston Ballet's production more than meets the challenge of this demanding choreography and the sophistication of Mahler's music: it triumphs.

It takes 70 dancers, Johnathan McPhee's superb Boston Ballet Orchestra, Boston's highly respected New World Chorale, renowned opera soloist Sarah Pelletier, and the entire backstage crew to mount this colossus of a ballet, which runs for over 100 minutes without any intermission.

This program's impressive level of success is matched only by the effort that has gone into preparing for it, and this in turn helps to explain why no other North American ballet company has performed it. The physicality of the choreography pushed the Boston Ballet's dancers into intense cross-training for strength and endurance, something that is uncommon in the world of ballet. The demands of both the length and the strain of the work led to comparisons with running three marathons back-to-back. Lasha Khozashvili, the astonishing lead dancer who is offstage for less than three minutes, said, "This is the hardest ballet, with the stamina, that I've ever done."

Pushed to provide a narrative in words, Neumeier named the six movements Yesterday, Summer, Autumn, Night, Angel, and What Love Tells Me. The latter is derived from Mahler. "It is a ballet not to be understood. It is a ballet to be felt," Neumeier said in a television interview. Holding it all together is Khozashvili, the lead dancer, dressed slightly differently, and sometimes placed some psychic distance from the action.

The first of six movements, Yesterday, is an all-male display of power and connection that takes me right back to 1975, the debut year of this ballet. Following the explosion of the women's movement and the gay liberation movement, choreographers were challenging gender roles and expanding the gendered language of dance. Here Neumeier has 30 men not only lifting each other, but holding each other in strained poses that tax new muscles. Their ability to stand motionless at a severely forward tilt is awesome.

With a change to olive-colored tights and with the prominence of the snare drum, the men begin a militaristic chest thumping, before intertwining in multiple groupings of twos and threes and fours. They build pillars of many men, which disintegrate into floor work. Neumeier's consummate use of varied heights -- from floor poses to climbing on top of each other -- is thematic throughout the show.

The eerie blue light, the mono-colored tights, the bare chests, and the bare stage set a minimalist tone that carries through the entire ballet. There is no libretto, no scenery, no fanciful costumes or props. There is only the dance, the dancers, and the music: the Third Symphony is considered by many to be Mahler's work of genius.

The second movement, Summer, opens in silence with six ballerinas on toe against a light background -- and ends with the six turned away from the audience, hiding their expressions from the audience. Fall colors are introduced in Autumn, the third movement -- the women in orange and the men in brown. In a breathtaking duet, Bradley Schlagheck performs lengthy passages from his knees, while his partner Petra Conti uses her en pointe for elevating and extending her reach.

Night, the fourth movement, opens with ten minutes of silence in which Ana�s Chalendard is impeded from crossing the stage by something sticky on her shoe. She peels it away and is joined by Paulo Arrais and Khozashvili in somber work to the lovely voice of Sarah Pelletier. In Angel, the fifth movement, a delightfully playful Erica Cornejo twinkles under the gaze of Khozashvili. Finally, in What Love Tells Me, Khozashvili and Cornejo lead other couples in a choreography of love that seems less heterosexual than universal. It beggars belief that Khozashvili, after 100 minutes of strenuous dancing, is still capable of steady and dramatic lifts.

The entire evening has been an exercise of endurance for all concerned -- including the audience who, if they left for the bathroom were reseated in the back. We have been treated to a vision of love and connection in which Neumeier is unconstrained by boundaries of gender or number. Every combination of embrace has been danced, from soloists to squads. The way the audience leaps to their feet for a standing ovation has more to do with the brilliance on the stage than the rush to the restrooms.

Remaining performances of Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler are Thursday, Oct. 29, 2015, 7:30 p.m.; Friday, Oct. 30, 2015, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015, 1:00 p.m. at The Boston Opera House, 539 Washington St., Boston MA. For more information, the Boston Ballet's website.