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the operafilm

While attending a screening with his fiancé of the 1920 silent film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Allanson, a genetic researcher addicted to painkillers who identifies with actor John Barrymore and Robert Louis Stevenson’s tragic story debates the ethics of contemporary genetic research with his mentor. As his body begins to detoxify, he begins to lose his grip on reality: the audience become his writhing, dancing demons; he confuses his friends with characters in the movie. He convulses. His heart stops. Paramedics arrive; they administer CPR, beating on Allanson's chest in time with Hyde's on screen cudgel. The audience sings a requiem as his demons lift him up and convey him from the theater.