opera review

The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, San Francisco Opera

The movie about Steve Jobs - the one with Michael Fassbender - seemed to me to be for people who worship Apple products, who need to have the cult of Jobs taken down a peg. This opera seemed to be for people who want to indulge in the cult of Jobs a little more.

I am not such a person; in fact I detest Apple for their product design and user interface, exactly the things their admirers love. I'm interested in Jobs, though, mostly because I'm from the same town. But I went to see this opera primarily because I like the music of the composer, Mason Bates.

Bates said he wrote this opera with each character having a distinct sonic style and/or instruments associated with them. Some have criticized this, especially for the stereotypical "Magic Buddhist" character. I found the musical cues subtle and shading into each other, certainly in contrast with the classic example of this kind of technique in opera, the leitmotifs of Richard Wagner, who drags them up and hits you over the head with them.

The Jobs music was clangy and crackly, like very early Bates, my least favorite part of his output, but as the other characters emerged, the music varied and became quite attractive. There's two passages of strong dissonance at crisis moments: the one where Steve tells Chrisann to get an abortion, the other when the Apple board (played by the chorus) fires him.

The libretto is by Mark Campbell. After a short prologue in which the ten-year-old Jobs (played briefly by a nonsinging boy) is given his first workbench by his father, the opera begins in 2007 with Jobs (John Moore) giving the product launch of the iPhone (the term is never used, which is good because it's a stupid name, an example of Apple's inept product design), describing it as the "one device" that everyone will do everything on. And it proceeds through an irregularly paced series of flashbacks, in all of which Jobs is Jobs²⁰⁰⁷ with the grizzled look and the turtleneck, even for scenes taking place as far back as 1973.

It ends with his funeral, during which his wife Laurene (Sasha Cooke, the only performer whose work I knew and the only singer who could be consistently heard above the orchestra) turns to the audience and sings that as soon as this is over, everyone in the auditorium will take out their "one device" and turn it on.

Maybe the others, but not me. I don't own one. My indispensable device is my desktop computer at home, which has a full-sized keyboard and a big screen on which I can view two full documents at once, features denied the iPhone. And the reason I don't carry around such a device was adequately illustrated by the fact that, when gathering up my stuff to leave, I completely forgot the book I'd just checked out of the SF Public Library down the street. (I remembered it before I left the building, and got it back.) If I had such a device, I'd always be absently putting it down and forgetting I'd done so, or it'd fall out of my pocket, or something. Not for me.

Back to the opera. The plot depicts Jobs losing his way as Apple grows, becoming a cruel and soulless mogul, and then - with lapses and imperfections - getting it back again. The fall is depicted through Jobs's over-emphasis on work and ignoring people (thus his rejection of Chrisann and their daughter Lisa, following which he instantly turns around and gives Lisa's name to a computer, which is approximately how it actually transpired in real life), but his redemption is depicted entirely through his meeting and falling in love with Laurene; there's hardly any reference to this carrying itself out in his work. Founding another company? Returning to Apple? Not shown in this story.

The "Magic Buddhist," a spiritual mentor who's already dead most of the times he shows up, is a Jiminy Cricket character who serves as Jobs's conscience, but he's not the only one: Laurene and Woz (a much more minor character) also play that role, so there's three of them.

I can't blame this opera for fomenting the Legend of Jobs; it was already in existence. But at least it made for decent listening and a fairly effective show.