THE UNIVERSE WITHIN

composer of his generation in a recent survey of American music. The original-cast recording of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs received the 2019 GRAMMY award for best opera recording. A recent production in Calgary, Alberta was described as a “mustsee event” by the Calgary Herald.

The musical language of this opera enfolds us in an immersive experience. Bates has described his compositional approach as exploding the concept of Wagnerian leitmotifs into individual sound-worlds, with each character assuming not just a figural motif, but an entire sonic identity. Commenting on the original production, Bates noted that “I wanted Steve’s sound-world to have an authenticity to it, whether through the use of internal machine sounds (spinning hard drives or key-clicks) or external sound effects (charming whizzes and beeps).” His erstwhile friend and business partner Steve Wozniak (“Woz”) is “trailed” by tandem saxophones; his wife, Chrisann Brennan, is tagged by twittering flutes.

The opera’s libretto was written by multiple award-winning librettist/lyricist Mark Campbell, whose operas are among the most successful in the contemporary canon. A prolific writer, Mark has created 40 opera librettos, lyrics for seven musicals, and the text for nine song cycles and four oratorios. Among his best-known opera librettos is Silent Night, which received a Pulitzer Prize in Music and, along with his opera As One, is one of the most frequently produced operas in recent history. In addition to The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, Mark’s other successful works include The Shining, Sanctuary Road, Stonewall, Later the Same Evening, The Nefarious, Immoral but Highly Profitable Enterprise of Mr. Burke & Mr. Hare, The Manchurian

Candidate, Approaching Ali, The Secret River, A Letter to East 11th Street, Dinner at Eight, Volpone, Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World, Stone Soup, and Bastianello/Lucrezia. His musicals include Songs from an Unmade Bed, The Audience, and Splendora. He has also created a new adaptation of Stravinsky/Ramuz’s The Soldier’s Story.

In none of these works was the challenge of creating a libretto more formidable: a text suitable for opera singers to sing onstage while sounding natural and in a current vernacular. Yet Campbell had one advantage we all share in approaching this subject: direct knowledge of Jobs as a public figure and of how his ideas changed our lives. In a note for world premiere production, he observed: “I initially accepted Mason’s invitation to write the libretto…because I love his music, especially the brilliant kinetic energy and theatricality of his sound…I realized that it was an ideal match of a composer to a subject…Sometimes when I got stuck in this libretto, I would look back to 1984 and my first experience with my toastersized 128k Mac in my toaster-sized East [Greenwich] Village [New York] apartment.”

As Campbell’s recollection vividly demonstrates, personal experience pointed his way into The

(R)evolution of Steve Jobs

As audience members, we must follow his lead. This opera poses questions, but not answers, about how we experience life’s challenges in the digital age. Bates and Campbell challenge us to consider these questions with an open mind. Technology has become a gateway to the beautiful, immense, data-rich universe we inhabit. But how has it shaped our understanding of the larger universe within all of us?