Stage show will bring Steve Jobs back to life

Since his death in 2011, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs has been the subject of documentaries, books, a film and even a graphic novel.

Now the technology pioneer, who died at age 56, after a long fight with cancer, will be the focus of an opera.

In front of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in northern New Mexico, the Santa Fe Opera announced on Wednesday that its latest commission will be based on the man who helped revolutionize personal computers, the music business and brought the world the iPhone.

The Revolution of Steve Jobs will premiere during the company's 2017 season and will be written by composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell, according to the opera leadership.

The production will examine Jobs facing his own mortality and will circle back to the events and people that shaped and inspired him.

The move comes as New Mexico in recent years has worked to honor its connections to such technology innovators as Jobs and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. For example, a Route 66motor lodge in Albuquerque where Gates and Paul Allen lived while launching Microsoft Corp is being redeveloped into apartments as part of a neighborhood revival project.

While Gates worked on his project, Jobs operated from his garage in Los Altos, California, and with partner Steve Wozniak released the compact Apple II.

Jobs was fired from Apple in 1985 in a board coup but came back 11 years later. On his second tour, he introduced the iMac, the iPod and the iPhone.

That journey is the perfect story for an opera, Charles MacKay, general director, says.

"We are delighted to take this journey into the life and legacy of a distinctly American figure through the creative genius of Mason Bates and Mark Campbell."

Bates says the story of Jobs is a great intersection of creativity, innovation and human communication. His relationship with those who helped him along that journey will also help tell the story in the opera, Bates says.

"Each character will have (his or her) own music. When they collide, that's when it gets interesting."

This will be the first opera produced by Bates, who has gained national attention during the past decade by fusing traditional symphonic resources with electronic sounds. Armed with a laptop computer, he often performs in the presentation of his compositions.

Campbell has written 15 librettos since the mid-1990s, including the opera Silent Night.

Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment.