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Two of the opera’s principal characters, Jobs’ wife, Laurene, and his Zen master, Kobun Chino Otagawa, share a common purpose.

The fluidity of his memories are patterned after the Zen meditative practices, which Jobs embraced. The opera returns to events in 2007 at various times, but also moves backward as Jobs’ remembers events that reveal his nature at those periods in time and beyond 2007 for the memorial service at his death. The opera consists of succession of scenes moving from Jobs’ existence in 2007 to his thoughts of his boyhood in 1965 when his father presented the 10-year old Steve with a garage workbench. The Steve Jobs character is onstage and singing for virtually all of the opera’s one hour and a half duration. The opera centers on the year 2007 the year that Apple Corporation launched the Smartphone. Jobs has revolutionized how most of us relate to technology, but the opera is about Jobs’ personal evolution. The parantheses in the opera’s title – evolution” – is instructive. The opera as constructed by Bates and Campbell uses the Zen approach to achieving self-awareness – it consists of flashbacks in Steve Jobs’ memory. With some preparation before attending the opera, “The evolution of Steve Jobs” becomes a revelatory experience. Without a cursory knowledge of Steve Jobs biography and devotion to Zen Buddhism and an appreciation of how the technological products he created and designed changed people’s lives, the opera might seem obscure. It has not been authorized by Apple Inc., the Estate of Family of Steve Jobs, or by any persons depicted therein”. The Santa Fe Opera’s production includes the caveat that the opera “is inspired by the life and creative spirit of Steve Jobs, and does not purport to depict actual events as they occured or statements, beliefs or opinions of the persons depticted. Composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell were commissioned by the Santa Fe Opera to write an opera about Apple, Inc’s Steve Jobs.