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Steve Jobs' Life Is Now An Opera (cnn.com)
An anonymous reader quotes CNN's report on a new project from Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist Mark Campbell:
"The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs" is set to open on Saturday night at the Santa Fe Opera, home to the largest summer-opera festival in U.S. The high-tech production, which runs until August 26, jumps in and out of key moments in the Apple founder's life, from early product-development days alongside Steve Wozniak and the launch of the original iPhone, to his wedding day with Laurene Powell Jobs... The opera features an electronic score, developed by Mason Bates, that incorporates sounds from the products Jobs created, including the audio synonymous with turning on an early Macintosh computer. The libretto, or operatic script, doesn't call out words like Apple or iPhone due to copyright issues; instead, it uses descriptors like "one device" to reference the smartphone. "Only one device, does it all," the libretto reads. "In one hand, all your need. One device. Communication, entertainment, illumination, connection, interaction, navigation, inspiration..."
One scene in the high-tech production shows Jobs standing in his family's garage on his 10th birthday. When his father gives him a workbench, the walls around them light up into video screens...
One scene in the high-tech production shows Jobs standing in his family's garage on his 10th birthday. When his father gives him a workbench, the walls around them light up into video screens...
I've been to the Santa Fe Opera many times. They put on great productions in an awesome setting. It might be the greatest summer opera company anywhere. Each summer they do four operas from the (more or less) usual repertoire and one new or innovative production. One great example maybe 15 years back was "L'amour de loin" with Dawn Upshaw singing the principal role.
But an opera about Steve Jobs? Have the hipsters taken over even the southwest?
Granted, there was once an opera about Richard Nixon ("Nixon in China"). Maybe some day there will be an opera about Donald Trump; who knows?
But I think I'd skip the Steve Jobs opera.
The libretto, or operatic script, doesn't call out words like Apple or iPhone due to copyright issues
You can't copyright a word.
Floating, falling
Sweet intoxication
Touch me, trust me
Savor each sensation
Let the dream begin
Let your darker side give in
To the power of the music that I write
The power of the music of the night
I'll give him this, he did have one really good idea: Market computers & gadgets as high end accessories similar to expensive handbags. But he was an all around asshole with a company built on exploiting people (largely Foxconn employees who get woken up at 3am to make minor changes to his designs). He was also a dick to pretty much everyone (the Wozniak stuff is just the most well known). It's not like this info is hard to come by either. 10 minutes on google looking up well sourced articles will tell you how awful he is. But to hear people tell it he's some kind of wonderful.
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seriously WTF?
An opera for that asshole..
FREAKIN' LOAL DUDES!!
Heh, just like American politics... And what do they mean "now"?
Excuse me, Detergent Drama. ;)
I'm quite certain an opera could say words like iPhone, iPod etc The more pertinent question is WHY write an opera in the first place. Jobs was an extremely unpleasant person and not even in some magnetic personality / messianic sense either. He was simply an asshole who drove other more talented people to invent computers and devices to his liking. Big fucking whoop. Maybe the chorus should be "big fucking whoop" over and over for all the good it'll do the production because the chances of turning a profit are zero.
Shouldn't it be a "safari" instead?
Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
Dorks are more interesting.
I attended the dress rehearsal Thursday Evening.
I am normally not a fan of the modern "let's see how discordant we can be" operas. I prefer Mozart, Pucinni, et. al.
However, this is an exception. The music blends live orchestra with electronic music in a good way. The sets use digital projects that managed to match the moods of the story well. I was uncertain at the start about the jumping back and forth in time to thread together bits of the story, but by the end I was very impressed with how well they had woven the stories together. They didn't try to sugar-coat the dark side of Jobs. And they left a very complete feeling of having viewed the evolution of a unique human being.
The soprano as his wife did well and the bass mentor/monk was delightful. All in all, I give it a nine out of ten. I think Mozart would have polished the music just a bit more, but I would pay to see it again.
Will it show Steve ' Abdulfattah "John" Jandali' Jobs taking LSD? Will we see him tripping the FUCKKKK OUT
Will it show how he ruthlessly exploited his fat, humble teddy-bear friend, Wozniak?
What I really want to see is the part where Steve goes around Apple telling people he's sterile and his ex was a whore, so "there's NO WAY that kid is mine".
Like a Champion of the Ages.
This is the Steve "Abdulfattah" Jobs I love and remember.
this is over the top, dudes. Get Jobs' dead dick out of your mouth. It's enough.
he was a great techie but it's enough, let him rest.
Who plays that part of the young girl Lisa whose father Steve disowned and shunned her?
for giving us an alternative to the horrible abomination known as Android.
The libretto, or operatic script, doesn't call out words like Apple or iPhone due to copyright issues
Since when copyright restricted using a name? Even a trade mark cannot be used to prevent someone talking about it using the protected name.
they've moved on from bashing Steve Jobs to bashing Elon Musk. Apparently the way to truly piss off this crowd is by being a world-changing tech visionary.
is because he was indisputably a tech visionary that altered nearly every facet of modern life. But don't let that get in the way of your stupid theory.
An opera? Really? An art form from the 1600s? Why not a medieval song-play? Or an ancient Greek drama (also sung)? Is this the right form to treat the life of someone who obviously (if you like him or not) influenced the use of advanced technology in our society more than almost anybody else? I (as a former musicologist) find that strange, at least. Besides the fact that I do not think an opera is an appropriate medium to deal with more than an special episode instead of a lifetime or a larger part of it. And: no! A musical (an "operetta") would be even worse. ;-)
To cite Roger Water's "It's a miracle" (from "Amused to death"):
"We cower in our shelters
With our hands over our ears
Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
Runs for years and years and years
An earthquake hits the theater
But the operetta lingers
Then the piano lid comes down
And breaks his fucking fingers
It's a miracle"
At least they didn't Chrome him.
Anyone going should play Spot the Fanbois at the venue.
Actually, no...that would be *way* too easy.
So strange to see this on here. I thought this was a joke when I heard about it several months until my little brother to me he was playing the role of Steve Jobs in this opera.
that sounds gay
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
Steven Jobs Steven Jobs Steven Jobs
I want to be like Steven Jobs Steven Jobs Steven Jobs
I want to be like Steven Jobs
I want to be like Steve
I want to be like Steven Jobs
I want to be him where I like
Ah you get the idea ;)
Since Woz already has his own opera.