Arts & Events

AUTHOR'S NOTE: In my review of this opera that was posted on September 29, there were unfortunately many errors, misnamers, and typos. What follows below is the corrected version of this review.



What I’d heard till now of music by Bay Area composer Mason Bates seemed to me glib, light-weight, and of llittle interest. For example, his Piano Concerto, which premiered at San Francisco Symphony in 2022, struck me as meretricious, hardly worth the valiant effort of the brilliant pianist Daniil Trifonov for whom Bates wrote the work and who performed it at its SF premiere. So now, as I attended the Sunday matinee of The (R()evolution of Steve Jobs on October 24, I didn’t expect great things. Well, though I certainly did not experience great things, I must say that, for the most part, Mason Bates’ pop-infused mix of traditional orchestration and computerized soundscapes worked reasonably well in this operatic tale about a Silicon Valley ihigh-tech mogul and ruthless executive. 

Although this opera’s opening —and closing — scenes feature a ten year-old tSteve Jobs receiving a birthday gift of a work table and tools given him by his adoptive father, no mention is ever made in this opera of the fact that Steve Jobs was born Abdul Lateef Jandall of a Syrian father and a German-American mother, who put him up for adoption shortly after his birth. Surely, this fact seems highly relevant to the story told here by Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell of a Steve Jobs who always considered himself an outsider. 

In the role of Steve Jobs, baritone John Moore presents a tormented individual, a dropout from college, a guy who was a hippie, a follower of Zen Buddhism, and a renegade with little regard for others. John Moore, who pioneered the role of Steve Jobs when this opera received its world premiere at Santa Fe Opera in July, 2017, has won praise for his “handsome timbre, unflagging energy, and an easy command of the stage.” indeed, we witness the charisma of John Moore’s depiction of Steve Jobs when the non-linear narrative jumps from the opening scene of a ten year-old in 1965 to an adult Steve Jobs making a dramatic project launch of the first Iiphone in 2007 at a SF Convention Center. Alas, the music that closes this bravura speech is bombastic in the extreme. One wonders: Did Mason Bates make this music bombastic to underscore the glibness of Steve Jobs’s over-the-top sales pitch of this new hand-held device that he alleges can do so many wonderful things? In short, is Steve Jobs a high-tech wizard or a huckster? Or both? 

Several other members of the original Santa Fe cast are present here in our SF Opera production. Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke is a radiant, vocally anchored Laurene, the woman Steve Jobs marries. In keeping with her portrayal as a potent grounding element for the mercurial Steve Jobs, 

Laurene’s music is, as Bates describes it, full of stately “oceanic harmonies.” Vocally, Sasha Cooke was at her best in Scene 16 where she tells the seriously ill Steve she loves him but cannot live with him unless he is willing to change, deal with his illness and confront his mortality. This moment was perhaps the vocal highlight of the entire opera. Moreover, on this moment hinges the libretto’s story of the ultimate redemption of Steve Jobs through the loving intervention of his wife Laurene. Whether audiences believe in this redemption is an open question; but this opera plainly makes the case for such a redemption, unlikely as it may seem in reality. 

Another carry-over from the Santa Fe premiere was tenor Billie Burley as Steve Wozniak, the co-founder with Jobs of Apple, and a high-tech genius in his own right. Billie Burley’s vocals are often accompanied by saxophones; and his high point was his confrontation with Steve Jobs whom he castigates for running roughshod over all his underlings in his obsessive quest for perfection. In short, Wozniak accuses Jobs of becoming “one of the bastards we hated, … a corporate prick.” 

Although she did not perform in the Santa Fe premiere of this opera, soprano Olivia Smith made here her role debut as Chrisann Brennan, Jobs’s girlfriend whom he gets pregnant and then refuses to accept his paternity. Chrisann is characterized by flutes, emphasizing her flights of hippie idealism. Last but by no means least was bass Wei Wu as Kõbun, Steve Jobs’s Buddhist mentor, whose vocal parables are accompanied by gongs, Tibetan singing bowls, and an alto flute. One may balk at Kõbun’s musical and dramatic portrayal as a stereotype, but it seems that this Buddhist monk had quite an influence on Steve Jobs. 

Steve Jobs died in 2011 at the age of 56. A memorial service was held at Stanford University Chapel, in which Steve Wozniak and Laurene Powell Jobs reminisced about Steve Jobs and his remarkable achievements. In this, the penultimate scene in the opera, Laurene closes with the remark that Steve Jobs would probably say, “Buy the phones. But don’t spend your life on them.” 

This is an astute cautionary warning. But one that apparently is ignored by so many people who remain glued to their smart phones throughout most of their waking hours. 

Conducting this SF Opera production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, was Michael Christie, who also conducted this opera at its 2017 Santa Fe premiere and its subsequent 2019 Grammy award-wiinning recording with the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra. Kevin Newbury was our SF Opera director. Set designs were by Victoria (Vita) Tzykun, the lighting designer was Japhy Weideman, and costumes were by Paul Carey. The sound designer was Rick Jacobsohn, and composer Mason Bates performed electronics from two MacBook Pros, which were amplified in the orchestra pit.