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FULL SYNOPSIS
[Run Time: 1 hour, 30 min]
Scene 1: Milwaukee, WI. April, 2010. A dining room in a luxurious home by the countryside. It is 7:00pm and pouring outside.
Marcus and Laura are on their way to a stranger’s house for dinner, only knowing the host is a coworker of their friend Scott who is strangely absent. Throughout the dinner, Laura becomes increasingly suspicious that Christoph is a cannibal. Christoph kicks them out when he discovers them rummaging through his personal belongings as he was off fetching the main course. Marcus finds a tooth in his takeout on the drive back.
Scene 2: Marcus and Laura’s apartment, later that evening.
Back at their apartment, Marcus and Laura attempt to rationalize why there was a tooth in Marcus’ food. After a long debate, they ultimately conclude that Christoph being a cannibal is the most likely scenario and plan to closely follow him the next day at the grocery store.
Scene 3: The Grocery Store, the next day.
Marcus and Laura follow Christoph to the grocery store. Laura has second thoughts on their spying, but Marcus reassures her. Marcus goes to use the public restroom, only to have Christoph walk in soon after. Marcus disguises his voice and tries to converse with Christoph in an attempt to get him to confess to his crimes. As Christoph leaves, Marcus accidentally drops the tooth in the toilet and flushes it in a panic, destroying their only piece of hard evidence. Christoph remarks he’ll be visiting the art museum next, so Marcus and Laura follow him there.
Scene 4: The Art Museum, the same day.
Christoph admires a piece titled “Demons Practicing Cannibalism.” After his soliloquy, he spots Marcus and Laura spying on him from a distance. Laura shakes it off as a chance encounter and apologizes for the previous night. She asks about the painting, which generates more suspicious remarks from Christoph. After some persuading, they are re-invited to dinner at Christoph’s house later that evening.
Scene 5: Christoph’s house, that evening.
Christoph welcomes Marcus and Laura back into his home, giving them a tour of his special “Bone Room.” The room is full of various artifacts from different tribes as well as bone art, instruments, and taxidermies. He tells Marcus and Laura about his travels around the world. While Christoph goes off to fetch the wine, Laura and Marcus find a box of files with culinary reviews of the tribespeople Christoph had murdered and eaten. Christoph catches them by surprise with chloroform and they are rendered unconscious.
Scene 6: Christoph’s house, dining room.
Marcus and Laura wake up at the dinner table tied to chairs. Christoph admits to how he’s been eating all the tribespeople that have rejected him and shares his philosophy on making connections through cannibalism. At the height of his speech, Marcus’ phone goes off, causing Christoph to have a meltdown. Police sirens are heard in the background, and Christoph haphazardly prepares his feast and ends up choking to death on an appetizer. Marcus and Laura untie themselves only for the police to arrive to the sight of Marcus standing atop Christoph’s corpse while holding a knife. As Marcus and Laura are being arrested, Laura alerts them to the Bone Room, where they discover the evidence of Christoph’s crimes. They are let free, and Laura gives one final snarky remark.
WORK SAMPLES
10' Medley from the Orchestral Workshop at Hillman Opera
performed by:
Mia Mandineau - Laura
Dan Novak - Marcus
Patrick Connolly - Christoph Aberfeld
Conducted by Glen Cortese
Commissioned by Kor Productions for the Orchestral Workshop Premiere at Hillman Opera (SUNY Fredonia), 2023.
Scene 1: Argument Duet
performed by:
Mia Mandineau - Laura
Dan Novak - Marcus
Conducted by Glen Cortese
Commissioned by Kor Productions for the Orchestral Workshop Premiere at Hillman Opera (SUNY Fredonia), 2023.
Christoph's Aria:
You know my heart
performed by:
Robert Ellsworth Feng
Justina Lee
Performed for the Joyce DiDonato Masterclass at Carnegie Hall (2024)
ABOUT THE CREATORS
Composer
Nick Bentz (b. 1994 - Charleston, SC) is a composer, violinist, and multimedia artist whose work is drawn to remote fringes and recesses of experience. In his work he seeks to render intimately personal spaces imbued with an individual sense of storytelling and narrative. His art centers around the blurring, juxtaposition, and amalgamation of stylistic idioms into singular sonic statements.
Nick's music has been performed by leading artists including International Contemporary Ensemble, yMusic, Ensemble Dal Niente, Hub New Music, HOCKET, Sandbox Percussion, and LIGAMENT. Increasingly at home with the orchestra, his symphonic works have been played by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Charleston Symphony, Suzhou Symphony Orchestra, and Jacksonville Symphony, and has been featured at Lincoln Center, Cabrillo Festival, Kimmel Center, Copland House, and Bowdoin Music Festival. His first opera, Having Guests for Dinner was commissioned by /kor/ productions and has been performed by Hillman Opera, Hartford Opera Theater, New Opera West, and Central Washington University.
Nick is an avid collaborator across artistic mediums, with multimedia works exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai, LA Shorts International Film Festival, Chengdu Museum, KuBe Art Center, Columbia Circle, and venues across the US and China. His piece Million Adversarial Faces was launched into space by Weina Star Technology Company, and is currently in orbit around Earth. His work has received top honors from the Tribeca New Music Festival, the American Prize, the iSING International Young Artists Festival, Boston New Music Initiative, Hartford Opera Theater, and American Composer’s Orchestra’s EarShot Readings. Nick has held residencies at Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Suncoast Composer Fellowship, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts.
As a violinist, Nick has soloed with the Charleston Symphony, Thornton EDGE, and the Pacific Philharmonic. He has also performed with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. An avid interpreter of new music, Nick has commissioned and premiered a number of pieces ranging from chamber and solo pieces to concerti and multimedia works. Current projects include co-commissions from Ensemble Intercontemporain and Wigmore Hall, a Kennedy Center debut as part of the Sounds of US Festival, a piece for percussionist David Moliner to be premiered at the Musikverein in Vienna, and multimedia projects with visual artist Allyson Packer and soprano Anika Kildegaard.
Nick is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Brown University, pursuing a doctorate in Music and Multimedia Composition under Anthony Cheung. He received a master’s degree in composition from the University of Southern California. Nick also earned a master's in violin from the Peabody Conservatory, receiving bachelor's degrees in violin and composition from Peabody under the tutelage of Herbert Greenberg and Kevin Puts. Nick's mentors include Wang Lu, Eric Nathan, Butch Rovan, Nina Young, Donald Crockett, Ted Hearne, Andrew Norman, Felipe Lara, and Yiorgos Vassilandonakis; his violin teachers include Lina Bahn, Yuriy Bekker, and Diana Cohen.
Librettist
Robert Ellsworth Feng (b.1995 - San Francisco, CA) is a Chinese-American bass-baritone and librettist who creates impactful and entertaining works that have been described as “relatable and fresh.” His comedies are noted for being “quick-witted and layered”, and his horror as “hauntingly engaging.” His goal is to help move this industry toward a more inclusive direction, where the stories we tell and who gets to tell them are as diverse as the audiences today. Robert’s political satire micro-opera Chew On This premiered in June 2024, (with composer Yunfei Li) commissioned by Lyric Opera of Kansas City and No Divide KC for their Come As You Are (CAYA) Festival, described as “truly an operette for our times” (S. Fairbank).
Feng’s first opera (with composer Nick Bentz) Having Guests for Dinner is a 1-act horror/comedy. It premiered virtually with New Opera West in 2020 and has since been performed live with them as well as Hartford Opera Theater and Hillman Opera at SUNY Fredonia in 2024 where a 90 min version was commissioned by Kor Productions. It was recently performed at Central Washington University in April (2025) for their chamber opera showcase.
Feng's body of work includes 7 operas (5 of which have been commissioned and/or performed), 1 oratorio, 3 song cycles, and 2 art songs. Most notable are his operas Having Guests for Dinner (comp: Nick Bentz, commissioned by Kor Productions, performed at Hillman Opera SUNY Fredonia in 2023), Salmo (comp: Nick Bentz, to be workshopped at Brown University in 2027), Chew on This (comp: Yunfei Li, commissioned by Lyric Opera of KC & No Divide KC in 2024), and The Ming & I (comp: Ben Yee-Paulson) a commission by Boston Opera Collective for 2026. Feng has also collaborated with prolific NYC based composer Felix Jarrar on the art song When They Killed Us, Did You Say They Killed Americans? about the 2021 Atlanta Spa Shootings and rise in anti-Asian hate crimes during the Covid Pandemic, and the supernatural horror opera You Do Not Recognize the Bodies in the Water, which was workshopped at OPERA America in 2022.
Robert holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory and Manhattan School of Music and is a recipient of the Peabody Career Development Award. Feng was a Librettist Fellow for Lyric Opera of KC and No Divide KC’s CAYA Festival Fellowship, and is an alum of Really Spicy Opera’s Aria Institute for Composers & Librettists: Sci-Fi Edition, and Librettist Workshop.