Mark Campbell Gives Steve Jobs the Opera Treatment
Librettist Mark Campbell has penned nearly 40 operas, including one about Silicon Valley's most mythologized figure.
“I had the original toaster-like Macintosh in 1984,” says Mark Campbell. “And I have been a devotee of Apple since.” Good thing, then, that he was asked to write the libretto for The [R]evolution of Steve Jobs with composer Mason Bates.
Over the past two decades, Campbell has become one of contemporary opera’s leading librettists, winning a Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award, among other accolades. He’s also been staggeringly prolific, having helped to create nearly 40 works since his first opera in 2004.
So it’s surprising to learn he didn’t set out to pursue this career, much less to make a name in opera.
“No one dreams of becoming a librettist,” says Campbell, whose original dream was to become an actor. “Then I discovered I wasn’t a good enough actor to have a career in it.”
He next tried his hand as a graphic designer and might have stuck with it had he not been lured away by love. “I was dating a composer and he needed lyrics for a musical he was writing,” he says. “So I started writing lyrics.”
In almost no time at all, Campbell began earning praise for his work as a musical theater lyricist. In 1991, he became the first-ever lyricist to win the Kleban Prize for Musical Theatre 1991. Stephen Sondheim, who headed the jury that year, called Campbell the most promising lyricist among those who applied.
As time went by, Campbell grew increasingly disillusioned by the sometimes fickle and fair-weather nature of the musical-making business.
“Musicals…are often written on spec,” he says. “So you could spend years and years working with a theater saying, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna produce this.’ And then at the end of it, they say, ‘Oh, we decided we’re not gonna do it.’ One reason that I moved from musical theater to opera is because I really like the way opera companies commit to producing a work. It’s too expensive for them not to, so it just has to go forward.”
His first opera, Volpone, written with composer John Musto, was commissioned by Wolf Trap Opera and premiered at the venue in 2004. “I’ve never looked back,” Campbell says.
His focus in recent years has been on bolstering the work of his fellow opera librettists. Among other things, five years ago, he helped launch the Campbell Opera Librettist Prize with the affinity group OPERA America.
“I’m embarrassed that my name is on it, but that wasn’t really my choice,” he says, going on to stress the significance of the annual award, which comes with a $7,000 cash prize funded by Campbell himself. OPERA America administers the award and also oversees the jury of independent experts who select the recipient.
“It’s the first and only award for opera librettists in the history of opera,” he says. “It’s really crazy — there are dozens of awards for composers, but no one honors the librettists. I guess I was just so dishonored I had to do something.”
A librettist is often every bit as responsible for the story, the theme, and the vision as an opera’s composer. “We come up with the story, we come up with the words, we come up with the structure, we come up with the characters, we come up with the plot.”
He continues, “It always makes me laugh when a critic says, ‘Oh, so-and-so’s opera was hilarious’ — and they [name] the composer. The truth is that the audience isn’t laughing at the music. The music supports the idea, but it’s actually the librettist in conjunction with the composer who made the audience laugh.”
Campbell has many comic operas in his repertoire. But that’s not the case with The [R]evolution of Steve Jobs, which is being produced by the Washington National Opera from May 2 through 10 at the Kennedy Center. Campbell is quick to identify other appealing aspects of the work.
“It’s an opera that young people especially will love because Mason’s music is electronic, and it’s driving,” he says. “And it’s fun. It’s not like a scary opera — it doesn’t yell at the audience. So many operas try to lecture people.”
Campbell thinks Jobs will have special appeal to many gay theatergoers, given the widespread use of Apple products in the community.
“This opera is very much about how technology has affected us and our personal lives,” he says. “It’s really about a man who created huge advancements in technology that made us communicate [and] connect with each other, but he could not connect with people in his own life.”
The Washington National Opera’s production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs runs Friday, May 2, to Saturday, May 10, in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Tickets are $45 to $269. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.kennedy-center.org.
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