A Steve Jobs opera is up next for the Santa Fe Company
Just don’t call it iOpera. The Santa Fe Opera has announced that its next commissioned work will be “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs,” with music by Mason Bates, known for combining electronic sounds and traditional instruments, and a libretto by Mark Campbell, according to nytimes.com.
With its premiere planned for the summer of 2017, the opera will take an intensely personal look at Mr. Jobs, the technology visionary who co-founded Apple and died in 2011, and his family relationships, as well as his practice of Zen Buddhism. The work seeks, according to a news release from Santa Fe Opera, “to capture the buzzing creative realm of Silicon Valley with a kinetic electroacoustic score, lush vocal writing, a compelling nonlinear narrative and a production as innovative as the man himself.”
In an interview Charles MacKay, the general director of Santa Fe Opera, said that Mr. Bates had been in touch with Laurene Jobs, Mr. Jobs’s widow, but that she had not yet seen a draft of the libretto. “He has emphasized in his communication to her that this is a very respectful treatment of his life and her relationship to him,” Mr. MacKay said, adding that the material in the libretto is already in the public domain. “We do not have a blessing from anyone.”
Kevin Newbury will direct the Santa Fe production, which will receive its first workshop in September in San Francisco, and Michael Christie will conduct.