The Atlanta Opera is livestreaming The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs by Mason Bates this Friday, May 6th at 8 pm ET. Originally commissioned by the Sante Fe opera, this production The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs is a coproduction with the Austin Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, Calgary Opera, and the Utah Opera. Tickets to the streaming event can be found here.
The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs is orchestrated with two alto saxophones. This is one of the most anticipated modern America operas premiering this season.
Another live in cinema opportunity is on Saturday, May 7th, 2022 with Turandot returning to the stage at the Metropolitan Opera. Puccini added the alto saxophone in his final opera, and if you listen carefully, you can hear it during the children’s chorus in each three acts. Not every production of Turandot includes the saxophone, but the Metropolitan Opera never leaves it out.
If you don’t follow opera news, this production was going to feature Putin friendly soprano Anna Netrebko as Turandot, but after the invasion into Ukraine, Netrebko was dropped from this production and replaced by Ukrainian soprano Liudmyla Monastyrska.
The final stream is one I can’t really recommend, but I thought I would include it for the curious. Operavision is streaming the Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny performed by the Teatro Regio di Parma. The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny was written by Kurt Weill with libretto by Bertolt Brecht. It centers around a gang of criminals building a city in Alabama where every pleasure can be purchased. Despite it’s location in the United States before either composer or librettist set foot in America, the opera is really about the decadence and the eventual fall of the Weimar Republic. Premiering in 1930, Nazi’s banned the opera three years later. The opera was forgotten about until the 1960s and now receives regular performances at major opera houses. This performance on Operavision is one of the weaker performances I have seen. The music seems under rehearsed, the pacing leaves too much dead space between chapters, and the acting distracts from the libretto. The one benefit to Operavision is that you can turn on English CC to follow along. If you already know the story, I happened to find a better production of the opera that stays true to the original vision while updated for a modern audience. This is from the 2019 Aix-en-Provence Festival conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen. This opera is written for the soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone.
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the Operatic Saxophone 