To write the story, Campbell poured through Walter Isaacson’s acclaimed biography of Jobs, digging out the “golden nuggets.” And as he read about Jobs, he became more sympathetic towards his character. But Campbell wanted to work with Bates, whose genre-blending music was something he loved. Everyone has their own version of him in their mind, and they believe that their version is the truest,” he said. “He’s such a presence in the public mind.

When the idea to write about Jobs came across Campbell’s desk, however, he wasn’t that excited. “ has taught us how important human connection is, and that’s what this opera ultimately makes a plea for,” said Mark Campbell, the opera’s librettist, who also penned the World War I opera “Silent Night,” produced by Austin Opera in 2019.

In the context of our current moment, though, where we’re continuously being isolated and reconnected by our screens, the opera has taken on a new relevance. Directed by Tomer Zvulun, the production was originally slated to premiere in Austin in 2020, but due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it was pushed for two years. “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” will come to Austin Opera in February in a new production co-created by Austin Opera, Atlanta Opera, and Lyric Opera of Kansas City. “Even though sounds like a crazy idea for an opera, the obsession with love, the tragedy of his death, it really is the stuff of opera,” said Mason Bates, the opera’s composer. “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs,” which premiered in 2017 at Santa Fe Opera and won the Best Opera Recording Grammy Award in 2019, seeks to connect those dichotomies in Jobs’s life, illuminating the humanity beneath it all. Steve Jobs was full of contradictions: He was a businessman and a free-wheeling hippie, a visionary and a perfectionist.

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