Even with WNO’s fine cast, Bates’ Steve Jobs opera still fails to compute
John Moore stars in Mason Bates’ The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs at Washington National Opera. Photo: Scott Suchman
Washington National Opera does right by its name in presenting American operas. The latest example is its production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Mason Bates, heard on opening night Friday. Given the trendiness of the subject matter, one would have expected the Kennedy Center Opera House to be much fuller than it was, but large swaths of the orchestra level remained empty.
Part of the problem was the decidedly un-operatic start time of 5:30 p.m. Chosen to accommodate the first night of the annual WNO Gala, with its swanky dinners hosted by ambassadors throughout the city, the time choice made getting to the venue that much more difficult.
Those problems aside, it was a homecoming for Mason Bates, well known at the Kennedy Center as its composer-in-residence for many years, mostly writing music for the National Symphony Orchestra. Since its world premiere at Santa Fe Opera in 2017, this 90-minute one-act opera has appeared in several American houses, often in the same production brought to Washington.
Mark Campbell’s libretto follows the mind of Jobs as he revisits episodes from his life, jumbled out of order. His father gives him a workbench for his birthday, he collaborates with Steve Wozniak to found Apple in his parents’ garage, and he gives the famous announcement of the iPhone. He drops acid with his high-school girlfriend and later denies his paternity of her daughter. His wife, Laurene, and his Zen spiritual adviser pull him back from the brink so he can become a better father, although only death finally convinces him to relinquish control.
The noisy score, filled with bleeps and blorps, requires the amplification of all singers, including the chorus, managed by sound designer Rick Jacobsohn. That decision makes the judgment of the voices difficult, as relative balances are mostly in the control of someone other than the performers and conductor.
Baritone John Moore has performed the title role many times, a sense of experience that came through in his performance. At full blast, the chorus and orchestra still overwhelmed his voice, as in the “One Device” ensemble, but he combined a polished tone and stage presence with a nasty egomaniacal edge. A woman in the audience actually yelled at him during his dismissive confrontation with Chrisann, the mother of his daughter.
John Moore and Winona Martin as Laurene Powell Jobs in The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs. Photo: Scott Suchman.
Mezzo-soprano Winona Martin has had a number of remarkable appearances as a Cafritz Young Artist in recent years. She applied her extraordinarily rich, warm voice to the role of Laurene, Jobs’ wife, here a patient, soothing presence always announced with a halo of string sound. Some of her sustained high notes frayed toward the end, a failing only made more apparent by the amplification.
In Santa Fe, another distinguished Cafritz Young Artists alumnus, bass Wei Wu, created the role of Kōbun, the Zen master who advised Jobs. He showed the same sagacity and gentle humor, as well as resonant bottom notes, in reprising the role on the stage where he had so many youthful triumphs.
Tenor Jonathan Burton made a splendidly nerdy Wozniak, even dancing absurdly in the “Ma Bell” duet with Jobs, when they tested one of their early triumphs, the blue box allowing them to make long-distance calls for free. His later aria condemning Jobs was delightful in its melodramatic, Italian-opera style, complete with a powerful high note labeling Jobs a “mega-corporate prick.” Two current Cafritz Young Artists, soprano Kresley Figueroa and mezzo-soprano Michelle Mariposa, provided highlights as Chrisann and Jobs’ calligraphy teacher, respectively.
The composer’s revisions of the score have not made this opera any more convincing as a drama. The opening scenes remained the most effective, especially the sound worlds created around the three principal characters of Jobs, Laurene, and especially Kōbun. The opera loses coherence around Scene 10, when Jobs’ egotistical nature leads too hastily to his downfall at Apple. All of his faults have to be redeemed too quickly after that, to make an ending for the opera, which again felt trite, complete with “aahing” Disney-style chorus.
At the podium, conductor Lidiya Yankovskaya kept steady control over the score’s mixture of acoustic and synthesized sound, the latter added by Nicole Cloutier, rather than by Bates himself with his signature laptop. Saxophonists Dana Booher and Paul Tucker, along with guitarist Jim Roberts, contributed the most distinctive instrumental parts, along with a broad range of percussion instruments.
The small chorus, just sixteen singers prepared by Steven Gathman, stayed in lockstep with Yankovskaya and each other, providing the most effective check on Jobs as the board of directors toward the end of the opera.
Tomer Zvulun’s video-heavy production, revived for WNO by Rebecca Herman, featured an overload of projections (designed by S. Katy Tucker), with screens on top of screens, in an almost seizure-inducing visual overkill. The opening of the back wall, to reveal an array of shining, spinning musical instruments as Jobs trips on LSD, added a much-needed moment of whimsy.
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs runs through May 10, including a May 9 performance with some substitutions by Cafritz Young Artists. kennedy-center.org
Photo: Scott Suchman
