Getty may have been worried about writing too long an opera, but I would have welcomed more. He has a real knack for setting words well and sensibly…His spare orchestration can be quite vivid (as in the final scene). He compares much of what he writes to movie music, citing such characters as Sylvester, Tweety, Yosemite Sam, and Mr Magoo, which is perhaps carrying self-denigration too far. Plump Jack is far more sophisticated than anything from Looney Tunes and would probably be effective on stage for an audience already familiar with Shakespeare’s plays. One of the most familiar lines from Henry V is given to Pistol: “O for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.” How bright a heaven Getty ascends should probably be decided by each individual listener. I loved Nell’s heartfelt eulogy for the dead Falstaff, “Nay, sure, he’s not in hell, he’s in Arthur’s bosom,” and the byplay among Falstaff, Bardolph, Shallow, and Pistol earlier on; the speeches of the two kings are rather stiff and less striking. We’ve reviewed quite a lot of Getty’s music in ARG (check the index), and our critics have generally been positive. Here’s another interesting recording to add to the list.

Getty writes mostly in a lyrical post-Straussian idiom. The opera has many lovely sections, especially when characters are expressing tender emotion, and from moment to moment the music is engaging, but a sense of dramatic direction and momentum is missing. Getty’s vocal writing is characteristic of many mid- to late 20th century American operas that use a conservative harmonic palette; it’s pleasantly lyrical, a sort of heightened recitative that only rarely bursts into sustained, memorable gestures or melodies that drive the drama forward. The choral sections are some of the opera’s most attractive, and the orchestration is skillful, varied, and inventive.

I couldn’t escape the feeling here that without a visual (stage) image to accompany it, this music — though well written — conveys more atmosphere than characterization. In fact, this is my general impression of the entire score (or, I should say, as much of it as is presented here). There is much to admire in Getty’s imaginative use of modal harmonies, the richness of his orchestration using surprisingly simple forces, and his occasional use of authentic pieces from Shakespeare’s time…but the broken-recitative style of much of the music mitigates against full enjoyment without seeing the characters onstage. In this respect, and I do not make the comparison lightly, Plump Jack is a work somewhat akin to Britten’s Death in Venice…Getty also manages to evoke, without copying, Britten’s mature style in the scene of Pistol’s blustering (“Pistol’s News”), who the composer compares to Yosemite Sam, and there is some truly dramatic, stabbing music in the banishment scene. I keep feeling that the orchestral music would also go better if this were a live performance. There is just too much of a stop-start, episodic feeling to it as a purely listening experience. What we really need is a Plump Jack DVD, and the whole score, in order to judge it more fairly. Yet in many ways, you can say the same thing of Verdi’s Falsaff, so this is certainly not an indictment against Getty’s composition. For those who enjoy Getty’s music (and I am certainly one of them), this disc may very well be indispensable to your collection. For the rest, perhaps, maybe, we’ll get the real, full Plump Jack and be able to fully involve ourselves in its wonderful if discursive musical intricacies.

It has been a long time coming, but Gordon Getty’s most widely discussed composition, the opera Plump Jack, has finally made it to disc — the 75-minute concert version, that is, which omits two of the opera’s scenes. And while it’s not clear that we as yet have the opera in final form — since the first performance of the “Boar’s Head Inn” scene (Act 1, Scene 5) at San Francisco Symphony in 1985, 11 additional scenes and an 11 minute and 18 second long overture have been added and orchestrated, and the entire opera has been recently revised — what we do have is an engaging musical enterprise that invites critical commentary…The music may be tonal in the traditional sense, yet its dark drama, arresting percussive exclamations, and intriguing dynamic contrasts immediately draw us — certainly me — in. Most of the ensuing dialogue far more resembles speech than melody, with Getty’s notably rich and compelling orchestration conveying the underlying emotions…Even as I acknowledge that I want the opera to succeed — Getty is, after all, one of the Bay Area’s and the world’s great music and education philanthropists, whose generosity enables a host of organizations (including SFCV) to perform with excellence — I can honestly affirm that much of it does.