this season
having guests for dinner
february 18, 2024
3 pm
We’ve saved a seat at the table for you at /kor/ productions’ newest opera workshop, Having Guests for Dinner!
You’re ‘formally invited’ to a dinner worth dying for this February with /kor/ productions’ newest contemporary opera workshop, Having Guests for Dinner. Librettist Robert Feng and Composer Nick Bentz’s newest one-act work serves up a delightful and dark comedy about loneliness, interpersonal connection, and cannibalism in the modern world. When Marcus and Laura arrive at their friend's coworker's house for a dinner party, things take an unexpected turn for the macabre. Over the course of the dinner, the couple becomes increasingly suspicious that their elegant host is actually a cannibal. Curious guests always make the best food in this dark comedy! Having Guests for Dinner received its virtual premiere as a 16 minute long micro-opera with New Opera West; this will be the first full length premiere of this exciting new work to date.
This semi-staged workshop, produced in participation with the Hillman Opera at SUNY Fredonia, will feature singers from the SUNY Fredonia school of music, and instrumentalists from the Western New York Chamber Orchestra, with Maestro Glen Cortese conducting and stage direction from Julie Newell. Join us as we ‘chew on’ some of the cleverest, most unique operatic characters to grace the modern stage this coming February 18th, 2024!
Having Guests for Dinner marks the third collaboration for /kor/ productions, Hillman Opera at SUNY Fredonia, and WNYCO. Their fall 2022 Hillman Workshop enabled young singers and compositional students to work one-on-one with contemporary composers and singers to produce unique and beautiful art songs. The company intends to continue a hybrid model for its developmental works, allowing their regional reach to extend outside of the Midwest. Audiences are invited to experience both in-person or digital productions interchangeably based upon personal preference levels.
libretto
robert ellsworth feng
Hailed by Opera News as a “booming, well-crafted bass,” Chinese-American bass and librettist Robert Ellsworth Feng is a born collaborator who creates powerful performances. Robert’s 2023-24 season began as a Young Artist at Hawai’i Opera Theatre where he performed the role of Papa in Jack Perla & Jessica Murphy Moo’s An American Dream, and also appeared with Washington National Opera / Vision Into Art / Beth Morrison Projects in
Paola Prestini and Brenda Shaughnessy’s Sensorium Ex (Ensemble/Corp cover). Upcoming performances include La Bohème (Colline) with Hawai’i Opera Theatre and the Mozart Requiem (Bass Soloist) with Glens Falls Symphony. Through his singing experience, Feng has found himself called upon to create original libretti for new and emerging works. Feng’s works often
find themselves interwoven with his identity as an Asian-American, with the ambition of helping create an equitable industry and a stage that reflects the diverse and multicultural audiences of today. Robert holds degrees from Peabody Conservatory & Manhattan School of Music.
MUSIC
nick bentz
Nick Bentz 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 the Philadelphia Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, and yMusic, and featured at Lincoln Center, Kimmel Center, and the Museum of Modern Art in Shanghai. Current projects include co-commissions from Ensemble Intercontemporain and Wigmore Hall, as well as works for Sandbox Percussion and percussionist David Moliner to be premiered at the Musikverein. Nick has held residencies at Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Suncoast Composer Fellowship, and Atlantic Center for the Arts. He is currently a PhD candidate pursuing a doctorate in Music and
Multimedia Composition at Brown University.
