High-Tech High Notes

Opera has always been a multimedia art form. It was designed to be a unique combination of music, drama, set design and often dance.

But Christopher Dobrian’s “Microepiphanies: A Digital Opera,” which will premiere Wednesday at UCI, adds some modern technology to the mix.

The UCI composer uses several computers, a digital sound effects processor, a number of synthesizers and other complicated electronic machinery to control what you hear and what you see.

“Our potential for disaster is incredibly high,” Dobrian said, laughing, in a recent phone interview from his UCI office. “If any of them crash, we’re in trouble.”

He was quick to point out that the traditional elements of opera would still be there, however.

“There are performers on stage, actors playing characters, acting scenes, but mostly speaking rather than singing. It would be more accurate to call it a melodrama.”

Dobrian and his writer-director collaborator, Douglas-Scott Goheen, head of UCI’s graduate program in scenic design, are the only live performers, however.

“The characters are very much like us in real life. The work’s about two university professors creating a digital opera. Rather than being a linear narrative, it’s more a series of vignettes, about 15 to 20 vignettes.

“It’s a little hard to describe any more without giving away too much. I like to describe it as ‘My Dinner With Andre’ meets ‘Waiting for Godot.’ ”

The work runs about an hour and is the largest and most complex that Dobrian, 41, has ever written.

“It’s a large leap in my progress as a composer,” he said.

Dobrian studied music at UC Santa Cruz and UC San Diego, where he got his doctorate in composition. After graduating, he taught music for two years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. He has been teaching courses in composition and “computers and music” at UCI for four years.

His collaboration with Goheen came about because the scenic designer saw Dobrian performances in which the composer talked and worked in an improvisatory way with a computer.

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“He was intrigued by the theatricality of it--me as a character on stage introducing strange music,” Dobrian said. “But we decided to try to avoid writing a libretto as long as possible. Instead, we decided to start applying the technology to things we found interesting.”

What they found interesting were “epiphanies,” or, as he explained the term, “those theatrical moments that happen in everyday life and are usually gone in an instant.”

“For instance, the way people may leave their house and then realize they’ve forgotten something. They make a gesture not to be embarrassed when they turn around in their tracks. It’s like a make-believe movie.

“We began compiling these moments of understanding. A lot of our ideas grew out of them.”

Musically, Dobrian’s early influences included composers Iannis Xenakis and Edgar Varese, both 20th century advocates of electronic media.

More recently, however, his influences have been jazz flutist James Newton and pianist Kei Akagi, both of whom teach at UCI.

“The music of these particular musicians is highly intellectual on one plane and highly visceral on the other,” Dobrian said.

“Among classical musicians, jazz is vastly underrated. People think you sit down and play jazz as if that’s an easy thing to do. It’s incredibly sophisticated.”

After the UCI premiere, Dobrian and Goheen will take their opera in May to four other UC campuses--at San Diego, Santa Cruz, Berkeley and Santa Barbara.

“We’re going to lure people in and find out if they like it or hate it,” the composer said.

And yes, there are tunes in this opera.

“Most of the music is not of long Wagnerian length but of pop-tunish length,” Dobrian said. “So if you don’t like any one of them, be patient. It’s only going to last a short time.”

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Christopher Dobrian and Douglas-Scott Goheen’s “Microepiphanies: A Digital Opera” will premier Wednesday, 8 p.m. in Winifred Smith Hall, West Peltason Drive and Mesa Road, UCI. Free. The concert is part of the Gassmann Electronic Music Series, which continues May 31 with a program of works by Amy Knoles titled “Men in the Streets.” (949) 824-2787.

Chris Pasles can be reached at (714) 966-5602 or by e-mail at chris.pasles@latimes.com.