“Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, will be the subject of a new opera written by the computer-savvy composer Mason Bates,” writes Anne Midgette in Wednesday’s (8/5) Washington Post. “On Wednesday, the Santa Fe Opera announced the premiere of ‘The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs,’ with music by Bates and a libretto by the ubiquitous Mark Campbell, coming in 2017. Bates, 38 … is the epitome of classical music hip-ness: he’s active as a DJ as well as a composer, and thus moves back and forth between the worlds of classical and electronica…. Wednesday’s announcement doesn’t specifically reveal whether or not there is an electronic component to the Jobs opera, though much of Bates’s music does include it. It does indicate that this is a bio-opera, with roles for Jobs’s father and at least one failed romantic relationship…. Bates has shown a flair for the dramatic in past compositions, including, most recently, ‘Anthology of Fantastic Zoology,’ written for Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony, where the composer just wrapped up a 5-year tenure as Composer-in-Residence. The piece was involving, dramatic, varied, and sometimes beautiful without being facile…. Bates is one of the most-performed living American composers…. If he’s a little more hip and a little less geeky than some of his colleagues, it certainly can’t hurt.”
Posted August 6, 2015
