In the Steve Jobs Opera, 'Genius' Remains Inscrutable

If you hear the words “Steve Jobs opera” and think, “great, a patently desperate attempt to attract tech donors to the arts by presenting a commercial for Apple that fawns over its billionaire CEO,” I am happy to report that you are wrong.

The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, running at the War Memorial Opera House now through Oct. 7, is remarkably enjoyable, and not at all a rose-tinted portrait. It’s also a perfect introduction for people who’ve never been to the opera: It’s shorter than your average Hollywood blockbuster, it’s sung in English and it’s about a device which two-thirds of all California residents carry in their pocket. Bring the kids — I did.

I also admit I approached The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs with some skepticism. Its composer, Burlingame’s own Mason Bates, has enjoyed patronage from tech giants like Cisco and Google, and has written such silicon-themed works as The Rise of Exotic Computing and Garages of the Valley. Who better to attract the tech sector, which has historically declined to support arts organizations like the opera? And would that require glossing over Jobs’ abusive tendencies, and celebrating rather than criticizing the far-reaching and detrimental transformations brought by the iPhone?

Instead, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs — finally seeing its Bay Area premiere after runs in seven other cities – directly addresses Jobs’ denial of his first child and his cruelty to her mother. It shows Jobs yelling at staff, demanding impossible deadlines. It depicts a man who sought inner peace for himself while haranguing those around him, and connected with nature while creating an addictive device that would distance much of humanity from it.

This dark truth-telling is accompanied by Bates’ bright, modern-but-accessible music, with cosmopolitan chords, Steve Reichian pulses and Bernstein-esque jazz. At times, this blends pleasantly with subtle computer sounds (we are spared the cliché of the dial-up modem, thank goodness) as well as sub-bass rolling around the Opera House, played from a laptop by Bates himself in the orchestra pit.

(R)evolution starts amidst towers luminescent in Apple white. After a prologue of young Jobs tinkering with gadgets in the family garage, the scene jumps to the announcement of the iPhone at MacWorld 2007. Jobs (John Moore, resolute and commanding) stands before app icons projected on a large touchscreen. The crowd leans in with anticipation as the music swells, and Jobs hoists in the air “one device / does it all / in one hand / all you need.”

Numerous reality checks eventually arrive. Some come from the people who love him most: Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (played with humor and personality by Bille Bruley), Jobs’ spiritual mentor Kobōn Chino Otogawa (Wei Wu, with gut-rattling bass and dry wit) and Laurene Powell Jobs (the excellent Sasha Cooke, doing her best with the character as written).

A nonlinear biographical highlight reel presents the origins of Jobs’ defining device. (The libretto, by Mark Campbell, does not use the word “iPhone.”) We see him taking LSD with his girlfriend Chrisann Brennan and perceiving the brilliance of natural design. We watch as he and Wozniak hack Pacific Bell with their homemade phone technology. We hear his college calligraphy teacher talk of simplicity, simplicity, simplicity.

We also witness his cruelty. He fathers a child with Chrisann, demands an abortion, then denies it’s his. “Twenty-nine percent of the male population in this country could be the father,” he snarls at a reporter, publicly tarnishing Chrisann, who desperately asks for recognition or support.

As directed by Kevin Newbury, these scenes come alive. And yet, even as Jobs is berated by Chrisann for refusing to acknowledge his daughter, abandoned by Woz for becoming what they once hated and fired by the board of his own company, it all falls into the service of the asshole-genius narrative. We know he’s going to win.

Thus, the only real tension here is that Jobs can’t admit his own failures, missteps or declining health. Is that enough to drive an entire opera? Especially when it ends with Jobs becoming a vaunted historical figure, “the inventor of the iPhone,” a multi-billionaire?

Jobs did of course wrestle with himself. This is spelled out during a segment in which Jobs chases after a younger version of himself on stage (Atom Young Maguire); getting in his way are people marching like robots and staring into their glowing iPhones, the very object of his fame and fortune impeding his ability to connect with his childhood self. Getting “back to the garage” is a repeated goal.

I would have appreciated less of Jobs’ inner turmoil and more of the effect Jobs had on the world. Near the opera’s end, the savior figure of Laurene Powell Jobs blithely delivers a mini-lecture to the audience, instructing us all to look up from our iPhones and notice nature, the stars and each other. This feels off — a bit like the Sacklers telling Americans to just stop using opioids once in a while.

A more realistic conclusion might examine the iPhone’s fallout: more people addicted to their phones than ever, suicide-inducing work conditions at Apple factories in China, the deterioration of teenagers’ self-esteem.

But such thoughts only arrive because (R)evolution is so good at drawing the audience in, forcing us to care about human invention, and the messy ways that society enters into large-scale behavioral shifts. For an hour and a half, you’ll reconsider your relationship to your phone, and how it came to dominate so much of your time.

‘The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs’ runs through Oct. 7 at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Tickets start at $26. More details and information here.