Ohrenstein Plans Contemporary Twist for Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas" on March 8 and 9

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Animated, passionate, intense -- as any classically trained soprano should be -- Dora Ohrenstein moves easily between the worlds of classical music, new music and the American art song.

Her classical training, combined with a deep, experiential knowledge of past and present American composers like Charles Ives and Ben Johnston, has inspired Ohrenstein to continually risk exploring new vocal terrain and experimenting with a wide variety of musical styles.

As a performer and teacher -- she directs UB's Opera Workshop and teaches voice as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Music -- she brings audiences and students into a heightened awareness of the historical context of her performances by making it relevant to the concerns and culture of the present day.

On March 8 and 9, Ohrenstein will direct Henry Purcell's "Dido and Aeneas," a rarely performed opera -- the first opera in English -- that was composed in 1689 and based on a section of Virgil's "Aeneid." Ohrenstein's production, while remaining faithful to the original work, will illuminate the conflict between public and private duty by placing the story within a context with which audiences are familiar: Dido will be a movie queen and the opera's chorus will be a group of paparazzi who relentlessly invade her privacy.

"Dido and Aeneas," a multidisciplinary collaboration featuring student artists from the departments of Media Study and Theatre and Dance, as well as Music, will be performed at 8 p.m. March 8 and 2:30 p.m. March 9 in the Drama Theatre in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.

The story is a tale of disappointed love between Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Aeneas, hero of the Trojan wars. The struggle between public and private duty, a theme present in the original work's setting, is a concept supported in Ohrenstein's interpretation with a live video camera on stage shooting selected scenes that will be projected from video monitors placed all around the theater. The audience will experience the stage production and its video counterpart simultaneously, allowing for a multi-faceted portrayal of Dido, the central character.

"It's very important to me to not make any (directorial) decisions that defy the essence of the work -- to remain true to the works conception," says Ohrenstein, whose association with musical theater includes her own critically acclaimed, one-woman production entitled "Urban Diva" and the landmark Philip Glass/Robert Wilson production of "Einstein on the Beach," a five-hour opera that she calls "very visionary, avant-garde and completely plotless."

In fact, it was her decade-long stint as solo vocalist for the world-renowned Philip Glass Ensemble that Ohrenstein credits with launching her career. "Being in the ensemble professionally was a great blessing, it put me on the map as an artist," she says. With the ensemble, Ohrenstein performed throughout Europe, North and South America, Australia and Japan.

"When I got into the ensemble, he (Glass) had just signed with CBS. It was a huge breakthrough for any classical composer to sign with a major label -- a lot of people in the business resented that and put down Philip's music as too accessible and not really art," she says.

A New York City native, Ohrenstein originally started out as a pianist, having played since the age of 9. "But," she confesses, "I was never that great. I was very musical, but didn't have great chops." So, she learned to sight-read music and by her early 20s knew that she wanted to be a singer and has since performed everything from chamber music to Gregorian chants. She has been called a singer of "limitless range" with a "liquid voice," and an "exhilarating" performer who "breaks with the expectations of her vocal genre (to) explore uncharted territories."

However, it is the American art song, represented by such diverse and critically praised works as her four-disc recording of "The Complete Songs of Charles Ives" (1994, Albany Records), her work with the group Bermuda Triangle and their widely hailed program entitled "The Political Songbook," and "Urban Diva" (1994, CRI) that perhaps defines Ohrenstein's career and gives voice to the political and universal themes present in much of her work: feminism, sexual identity, racism, heartbreak, longing and loss.

"I realize almost everything I do ends up having a strong feminist angle to it. When I say 'feminist' I mean issues like women's sexual identity and the roles they are made to play or are forbidden to play end up always being a perspective I bring to the opera world," says Ohrenstein. Themes of sexual identity and repression, as well as the media's invasion into private life, she notes, are present in the updated production of "Dido and Aeneas."

In May, she will make her professional directorial debut in a Buffalo production of "Pagliacci" with the Buffalo Opera Theatre. In fact, she gained valuable experience in coordinating large productions when she commissioned five American composers (Ben Johnston, Scott Johnson, Linda Bouchard, Anne LeBaron and Anthony Davis) to write songs for "Urban Diva" and was able to obtain a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to pay the composers and fund the musicians, costumers and other aspects of the show.