Steve Jobs’ life to be subject of tech-rich opera
Frisco, Seattle companies provide financing; SF premiere in July
SANTA FE — A techno-infused opera about the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has earned the financial backing of opera companies in San Francisco and Seattle, ensuring the musical meditation on the iconic entrepreneur will travel to America’s high-tech enclave.
The partnerships were announced Tuesday as the Santa Fe Opera prepared for its July world premiere of “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” at its open-air summer stage.
The Seattle Opera and the San Francisco Opera are underwriting both the already completed artistic creation of the opera, led by composer and electronica DJ Mason Bates, and its physical stage production. As co-producers, the companies guarantee their right to performances beyond Santa Fe in California and Washington. The Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University also has signed on as a co-producer.
Jobs’ life story, as the relentless technology pioneer who embraced Buddhism and simple vegetarian family dinners, has been the subject of documentaries, books, a feature film and a graphic novel since his death from cancer in 2011.
Sponsors of the Jobs opera are counting on Bates and librettist Mark Campbell to deliver a “deeply layered, moving portrayal of a man grappling with the complex priorities of life, family and work,” in the words of San Francisco opera General Manager Matthew Shilvock.
“He was also a real person and a member of our community,” Shilvock said of Jobs in a written announcement.
Charles MacKay, general director of the Santa Fe Opera, said Jobs provides the “sort of heroic, tragic figure” that operas have explored for centuries — who also may lure new and younger audiences to opera houses.
“The proof is in the pudding and in how the audience responds,” MacKay told the Associated Press. “This is not an opera about technology, although it will be the highest technology production that we’ve ever done. It is an opera about relationships, and it is an opera about human frailties. … He could be a very difficult man.”