A contemporary American opera is the feature on this week’s Sunday Opera (7/3 3:00 p.m.) from The Santa Fe Opera, one of the companies that commissioned it, we’ll hear “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” by Mason Bates with a libretto by Mark Campbell.
The opera is said to be a kinetic non-linear exploration of the life and career of Jobs and features a cast headed by Edward Parks in the title role who is joined by Sasha Cooke as Laurene Powell Jobs, Wei Wu a Kobun Chino Otogawa, Garrett Sorenson as Steve Wozniak, Jessica E. Jones, Kelly Markgraf as Paul Jobs, and Mariya Kaganskaya as Teacher. Michael Christie conducts this world-premiere staging.
After the opera, join Michael Kownacky for more interesting music by Mason Bates. We’ll begin with an incredibly interesting a cappella work for a 12-member group entitled “Sirens.” Framed by references from Homer’s “Odyssey,” the work looks to a variety of sources. The second work is a 12-movement orchestral piece entitled “Anthology of Fantastic Zoology” which is full of wonderful variety and is based on the mythological creatures found in the book of the same title by Jorge Luis Borges.
We’ll change gears a bit and close out our time together with a remarkable piece by a composer who died far too young. Hans Rott’s career hadn’t really begun when he succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 25. We do, however, have a catalog of 18 works he left behind that hint at what “could have been.” Our final piece of the afternoon will be Rott’s Symphony No. 1 in E major which he began when he was 19.
This week’s Sunday Opera truly does offer a wonderful variety of excellent music and performances.