External links
- Musical highlights, Seattle Opera, soundcloud.com
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The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs is an opera with music by American composer Mason Bates and an English-language libretto by Mark Campbell. It was commissioned by Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera, the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, with support from Cal Performances. The opera is about Steve Jobs, one of the most influential people in recent history; it is set at a time when he must confront his own mortality and circle back on the events that shaped his personal and professional life.
The world premiere took place at the Santa Fe Opera in 2017, conducted by Michael Christie. The original production featured direction by Kevin Newbury, scenic design by Vita Tzykun, costume design by Paul Carey, lighting design by Japhy Weideman, projection design by Ben Pearcy for 59 Productions, and sound design by Rick Jacobsohn and Brian Losch; it was a co-production of Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, San Francisco Opera, and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs was the most popular new opera in Santa Fe Opera's history and one of the top-selling operas in the company's history. An extra performance had to be added to accommodate the demand for tickets.
In May 2018, a recording of the work was issued under the Pentatone label; Bates and Campbell received Grammy Award nominations for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, engineers Mark Donahue and Dirk Sobotka were nominated for Best Engineered Album (Classical), and Elizabeth Ostrow was nominated for Producer of the Year (Classical). The recording won the 2019 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (honoring conductor Michael Christie, producer Elizabeth Ostrow, and principal soloists Sasha Cooke, Jessica E. Jones, Edward Parks, Garrett Sorenson, and Wei Wu).
Bates was drawn to Steve Jobs as the subject for an opera, because, he says, opera "can illuminate the interior thoughts of different characters simultaneously through the juxtaposition of individual themes. That makes it an ideal medium to explore a man who revolutionized how we communicate." [1] Bates asked Mark Campbell, one of America's leading opera librettists, to create the story in the libretto. According to Campbell, “Learning that Jobs was a Buddhist his entire adult life lead me to the ensō, the circle that is drawn in Japanese calligraphy to express enlightenment. I connected that with Jobs’ habit of taking long walks and the Zen practice of pacing in a circular pattern called a kinhin and began to develop a story in which Steve 'circles back' on his life. The title actually refers less to the revolution Jobs helped create in technology rather than the kinhin of self-reflection that propels the story." [2] Gary Rydstrom of Skywalker Sound assisted Bates with the production of the opera’s electronic sounds.
There have been several other presentations of the original Santa Fe production:
| Role | Voice type | Premiere cast, 22 July 2017 (Conductor: Michael Christie) |
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| Steve Jobs | baritone | Edward Parks |
| Laurene Powell | mezzo-soprano | Sasha Cooke |
| "Woz" (Steve Wozniak) | tenor | Garrett Sorenson |
| Kōbun Chino Otogawa | bass | Wei Wu |
| Chrisann Brennan | soprano | Jessica E. Jones |
| Paul Jobs | baritone | Kelly Markgraf |
| Teacher | mezzo-soprano | Mariya Kaganskaya |
This one-act opera features roles based on real-life figures Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Chrisann Brennan, Kōbun Chino Otogawa, and Laurene Powell. Inspired by the life and creative spirit of Steve Jobs, the opera does not purport to depict actual events as they occurred or statements, beliefs, or opinions of the persons depicted.
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Santa Fe Opera (SFO) is an American opera company, located 7 miles (11 km) north of Santa Fe, New Mexico. After creating the Opera Association of New Mexico in 1956, its founding director, John Crosby, oversaw the building of the first opera house on a newly acquired former guest ranch of 199 acres (0.81 km2). The company has presented operas each summer festival season since July 1957, and is internationally known for introducing new operas as well as for its productions of the standard operatic repertoire. Five operas are presented each season during the summer.
Kevin Burdette is an American bass who has worked as a soloist with the Teatro alla Scala, Metropolitan Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Santa Fe Opera, Seattle Opera, Teatro Colón, Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, Washington National Opera, New York City Opera, Opéra de Montréal, Boston Lyric Opera, Glimmerglass Opera, Opera Philadelphia, and the Spoleto Festival USA, as well as many regional opera companies including Florentine Opera, Opéra de Québec, Portland Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Atlanta Opera, Virginia Opera, Wolf Trap Opera Company, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Memphis, Gotham Chamber Opera, Knoxville Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, Toledo Opera, and the Lyric Opera of San Antonio. In 2015, he created the roles of Beck Weathers in Joby Talbot's Everest, Blindman and Stobrod Thewes in Jennifer Higdon's Cold Mountain, Eric Gold and the Ghost of Bazzetti in Jake Heggie's Great Scott, and Ob in Mark Adamo's Becoming Santa Claus.
Jake Heggie is an American composer of opera, vocal, orchestral, and chamber music. He is best known for his operas and art songs as well as for his collaborations with internationally renowned performers and writers.
Doctor Atomic is an opera by the contemporary American composer John Adams, with libretto by Peter Sellars. It premiered at the San Francisco Opera on October 1, 2005. The work focuses on how leading figures at Los Alamos dealt with the great stress and anxiety of preparing for the test of the first atomic bomb.
Stephanie Blythe is an American mezzo-soprano who has had an active international career in operas and concerts since the early 1990s. She is particularly associated with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, with whom she has performed annually since her debut with the company in 1995. In 2014 she starred as Gertrude Stein in the world premiere of 27, an opera composed by Ricky Ian Gordon with libretto by Royce Vavrek, and commissioned for her by the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
Meriwether Lewis Spratlan Jr. was an American music academic and composer of contemporary classical music.
The Del Sol Quartet is a string quartet based in San Francisco, California that was founded in 1992 by violist Charlton Lee.
The Mother of Us All is a two-act opera composed by Virgil Thomson to a libretto by Gertrude Stein. Thomson and Stein met in 1945 to begin the writing process, almost twenty years after their first collaborative project, the opera Four Saints in Three Acts. Stein wrote the libretto in the winter of 1945–46 before sending it to Thomson in March. After Stein's death in July, Thomson began working on the score, which he finished within just a few months. The opera centers around Susan B. Anthony, one of the major figures in the fight for women's suffrage in the United States, with a supporting cast of characters both fictional and based on other historical figures. Thomson famously described the work as a "pageant".
Nathan T. Gunn is an American operatic baritone who performs regularly around the world. He is an alumnus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he is currently a professor of voice.
Michael Christie is a Grammy-winning American conductor.
Charles MacKay is an American arts administrator, known for leadership roles at the Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, and Spoleto Festival USA/Festival of Two Worlds.
Joyce DiDonato is an American lyric-coloratura mezzo-soprano. She is notable for her interpretations of operas and concert works in the 19th-century romantic era in addition to works by Handel and Mozart.
Mason Wesley Bates is a Grammy award-winning American composer of symphonic music and DJ of electronic dance music. He is the first composer-in-residence of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and he has also been in residence with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the California Symphony. In addition to his notable works Mothership, Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, he composed the score to Gus Van Sant's film The Sea of Trees. In a 2018 survey of American orchestras, he was rated the second-most performed living composer.
Julian Patrick was an American operatic baritone and voice teacher. Born in Mississippi, Patrick grew up in Birmingham, Alabama where he was a member of the Apollo Boys Choir. After graduating from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, he began his professional career as a musical theatre performer in the 1950s; appearing in the original Broadway productions of The Golden Apple (1954), Bells Are Ringing (1956), Juno (1959), Once Upon a Mattress (1959), and Fiorello! (1959). He also studied singing privately in New York City with Cornelius L. Reid.
Pentatone is an international classical music label located in Baarn, Netherlands.
William Burden is an American opera singer (tenor). Since his professional debut at the San Francisco Opera in 1992, he has performed in lead roles in North America and Europe.
Patrick Summers is an American conductor best known for his work with Houston Grand Opera (HGO), where he has been the artistic and music director since 2011, and with San Francisco Opera, where he served as principal guest conductor, 1999–2016.
Cold Mountain is an American opera in two acts and an epilogue, with music by Jennifer Higdon and the libretto by Gene Scheer, based on Charles Frazier's 1997 novel of the same name. The opera is a co-commission between Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia and the Minnesota Opera, in collaboration with North Carolina Opera. The opera received its world premiere at Santa Fe Opera on 1 August 2015. This production coincided with the 150th anniversary of the ending of the American Civil War. Opera Philadelphia gave its first performance of the opera, in a slightly revised form, on 5 February 2016. North Carolina Opera gave the opera its home state premiere on 28 September 2017. The Minnesota Opera staged the opera in 2018 as part of its New Works Initiative. The Virginia Opera also featured performances of the opera during February 2021 as part of its themed "Love is a Battlefield" 2020–2021 season.
The 61st Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 10, 2019, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Singer-songwriter Alicia Keys hosted. During her opening monologue, Keys brought out Lady Gaga, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jennifer Lopez, and former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama, each of whom spoke about the impact that music had on their lives.
Mark Campbell is a New York-based librettist and lyricist whose operas have received both a Pulitzer Prize in Music and a GRAMMY Award. Mark began writing for the stage as a musical theatre lyricist, but turned to libretto-writing after he premiered Volpone, his first full-length opera in 2004 at Wolf Trap Opera Company.