The opera based on the life of former Apple CEO and company co-founder Steve Jobs is about to be released in Santa Fe (New Mexico) this Saturday. The work is called The (R) evolution of Steve Jobs and its world premiere will be on July 22 at 20:30 p.m., on the summer stage of the Santa Fe opera house. Therefore, the play will be performed outdoors.
The opera had been in development since 2015. It was Created by electronic music DJ Mason Bates with librettist Mark Campbell. The play tells the story of Steve Jobs and his struggle to balance life, family and work. In addition, the performance is accompanied live by an orchestra, a guitarist and natural sounds, which are complemented by electronic music and Apple's own sound devices.
Bates described one of the scenes for ABC News in a interview last week, highlighting the moment in which Steve Jobs presented the first iPhone before being defeated by the disease. At this point in Mason Bates' opera, 'The (R) Evolution of Steve Jobs', a heartbreaking sound emerges from the orchestra pit, a descending progression of shredding that is described in the score as an' electronic cutoff. '
«It is a combination of a stand-alone synthesizer with the Real sound on old Mac from hard drives when shut down and one in the opposite direction, the start, ”Bates explained in an interview last week at the Palacio de la Ópera in Santa Fe, where his work will finally see the light and will be released to the public next Saturday.
"That moment is where he realizes his mortality, so he wanted to have that kind of sound accompanying him, like off," Bates said. “Even if it cannot recognize sound, this add some authenticity since the individual, who is the subject of this opera, is the creator of some of the devices that we are listening to at that moment ”.
The opera, which lasts about an hour and a half, begins with a prologue in the garage of the Steve Jobs family home in Los Altos, California, with the protagonist's father, Paul Jobs, giving your child a workbench. From there, it jumps to 2007, where Jobs introduces the first iPhone, and then moves back in time and then back again between 2007 and the early years of Jobs in full growth at Apple. Campbell and Bates, who say that the opera does not intend to either vilify or glorify the figure of Steve Jobs, have directed the work by a timeline detached from the chronological that has been imposed by emotion and memory on the figure of genius created Apple. The story features, in addition to the essential figure of Steve Jobs, with several supporting characters such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Chrisann Brennan, with each character highlighted through a unique series of sounds.
The (R) evolution of Steve Jobs It has been financially supported by the opera companies in San Francisco and Seattle, ensuring in return the representation in the future of this avant-garde opera in California and Washington. Since his death in 2011, Steve Jobs's life has been the subject of countless books, films and documentaries, including one directed by Danny Boyle, written by Aaron Sorkin. This film, which was released in 2015, was a great success at the cinematic box office. Since his death, the figure of the co-founder of the most important technology company in history, along with Microsoft, has been the target of multiple forms of economic exploitation. The future will tell the result of this new opera, but what is certain is that it will not be the last work based on the life of Jobs.