Plump Jack

Composer’s Notes on “Plump Jack Overture”

My opera Plump Jack tracks the fictional career of Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, setting the original text where practical. Falstaff brews merry mischiefs with the scapegrace Prince Hal, to the despair of king and court, but is banished “Not to come near my person by ten mile when Hal becomes King Henry the Fifth. The overture is a synopsis of this story, quoting scenes of Falstaffian high jinks and of courtly grief by turn, along with a few idyllic episodes, interrupted by occasional distant fanfares warning of the banishment. If this last idea was filched from Leonora #3, then so much the better for its pedigree. At last the overture brings us to the banishment in full fortissimo, with the king’s baleful sentence, and then closes with Falstaff’s appeal for Hal’s heart and ours: “No, my good lord...banish Plump Jack, and banish all the world.”

Gordon Getty
October 2006

PLUMP JACK
ACT I

Scene 1: “The Warrant”
Hostess Nell Quickly has summoned Constables Fang and Snare to arrest Falstaff for nonpayment of debt. They do so as he arrives with his entourage. The Falstaffians fight the constables. The Chief Justice and his men arrive to restore order as a crowd gathers. Hostess explains her grievances to the Chief Justice. Falstaff promises to pay, but inveigles her into dropping the lawsuit and lending him another ten pounds. All leave but Falstaff. Prince Hal has been watching Falstaff’s performance from the crowd, and now comes forward to compliment his audacity. Boy reappears, and reports that pilgrims with fat purses will be crossing Gad’s Hill the following morning before daylight. Falstaff plans a robbery and invites Hal to take part. Hal refuses. Boy offers to persuade Hal in private. Falstaff exits. Boy tells Hal of his plot to rob the Falstaffians after they rob the pilgrims. Hal accepts. Boy exits.

Scene 2: “Hal’s Memory”
Hal is alone with his memories. He recalls the remonstrations of his father, King Henry the Fourth, warning him against his life of indolence and folly. He is touches to the heart, and promises to reform.

Scene 3: “Gad’s Hill”
We are at Gad’s Hill. It is pitch dark. Falstaff cannot find Hal or Boy or his horse, and rails against the ingratitude of man. The others appear and report that the rich pilgrims are about to arrive. All hide. The pilgrims enter. Falstaff, Pistol and Bardolph attack them and follow them offstage. They reappear with the pilgrims bound and Falstaff holding the loot. Hal and Boy attack them, as Boy and Hal make merry.

Scene 4: “Clarence”
Henry IV and the Chief Justice are discussing the wars at Windsor Palace. Enter Hal’s younger brother Thomas of Clarence. Henry IV advises him to stay close to Hal as a moderating influence, and to bear his humors with patience. He learns that Hal is dining with Falstaff, and laments the fate of his kingdom under the madcap reign to come: “O thou wilt be a wilderness again, / Peopled with wolves, they old inhabitants.”

Scene 5: “Boar’s Head Inn”
We are at the Boar’s Head Inn. Hal relaxes at his ease. Boy and Hostess Quickly serve him. Falstaff, Pistol and Bardolph enter, flummoxed and bedraggled. Falstaff denounces Hal for his nonappearance at the robbery. He reports his heroic defense against troops of assailants, the number increasing with each breath. Pistol and Bardolph swear to every word. Hal produces his mask and disguise and the empty moneybag. Falstaff swears that he saw through the trick from the start, and spared Hal’s life out of civic duty. Changing the subject, he invites Hal to practice a defense of his playboy lifestyle before his father. Hal agrees.
The Falstaffians put a stool on the table and heave Falstaff onto it. Playing Henry the Fourth, he denounces Hal and vilifies all his companions save for that single paragon Falstaff. Then the two switch places as Hal plays the father and Falstaff the son. This time the son is berated for consorting with Falstaff, “that old white-bearded Satan.” Falstaff, still playing Hal, answers “No, my good lord. Banish Pistol, banish Bardolph, Banish Boy, banish Nell, But for good Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, sweet Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him they Harry’s company. Banish Plump Jack, and banish all the world.” Hal answers softly, “I do, I will.”
Constables bang at the door, demanding that Falstaff join in the wars against the Scots and Welsh. All exit but Falstaff and Hostess. These two have known each other “some twenty-nine years come peascod-time,” through thick and thin, and share a tender moment before he emerges to face down the constables and march off to war.

PLUMP JACK
ACT II

Scene 6: “Shallow’s Orchard”
The elderly Justice Shallow is napping in his orchard in Gloucestershire. Falstaff’s arrival wakes him. They reminisce about merriment and wenching in times long gone. Shallow leaves to organize dinner for the Falstaffians. Falstaff, alone, lampoons Shallow and declares a plan to swindle him.

Scene 7: “Jerusalem”
Henry IV confers with his council at Windsor Palace. Warwick enters with the news that the rebellion against him has been crushed. In the rejoicing the king falls ill. Hal enters, repents his follies, and is reconciled with his dying father.

Scene 8: “Davy’s Ledger”
Shallow, in his sumptuous country drawing room, cannot find the silver and cloth he needs to impress his dinner guests. He climbs to a high cupboard and tumbles head over heels. His snooty and super-efficient steward Davy appears with servants. Without a word Davy restores order, finds the missing tableware in the chest on which Shallow had balanced in his climb, and directs setting of the table. Shallow, sunny and unflusterable, discusses farm matters with Davy as if nothing had gone amiss. Davy is instructed to treat Falstaff well: “A friend in the court is better than a penny in purse.” Falstaff and his men enter and are ushered to the table. Again Falstaff tarries to tell us his designs on Shallow. Meanwhile Davy, out of their sight, takes a nip from the wine flask.

Scene 9: “Pistol’s News”
At Shallow’s table all are four sheets to the wind. Davy, insufferable when sober, is the life of the party when drunk. He sings bawdy songs as he pours, and all join in. As he finally collapses, Pistol is announced with news from London. The news, decoded with effort from Falstaff make plans to share the spoils and to settle accounts with the Chief Justice.

Scene 10: “Banishment”
A crowd including the Falstaffians and Shallow gathers along the route of Henry the Fifth’s coronation procession. Falstaff has “borrowed” a thousand pounds from Shallow, supposedly to help pay for Shallow’s political advancement. The king’s train approaches. As all others kneel, Falstaff runs into the road to embrace his old chum. The king stares him down, blisters him and banishes him “not to come near our person by ten mile.” The procession continues with Falstaff prostrate. Falstaff pulls himself up and laughs off the tongue-lashing as public relations. Certainly Shallow cannot have his money back, or even half; it will still buy him great office as originally bargained. “Come with me to dinner,” commands Falstaff as he leads them off. “I shall be sent for soon at night!” Snow falls on the empty street as unseen monks sing the Agnus Dei.

Scene 11: “Muse of Fire”
Cannon are heard in the darkness. Unseen voices speak the chorus from Henry V describing preparations for war with France. Bardolph’s voice tells us that Pistol and Hostess are married. A spotlight finds Boy asking these two to come to Falstaff, who is very sick. “The king hath killed his heart.” Blackout and cannon again as the king exhorts the nation to war. Once more the spotlight finds Hostess calling the Falstaffians to their dying master.

Scene 12: “Off to War”
It is just before dawn outside the Boar’s Head Inn. Pistol calls out to Bardolph and Boy, and tells them Falstaff is dead. Hostess describes his death. As dawn breaks the street fills with men to go to war and women to see them off. Recruiting officers, vendors, tumblers, street entertainers and pipers join the scene. Companies march off as others form. The king and his train pass. Finally Pistol, Bardolph and Boy march away as Hostess and the women remain to bid their men farewell.

Cast

Hostess - Rose Taylor
Falstaff - Phillip Hill
Hal - John McGuire
Boy - Soo-Ah Park
Clarence - Jessica Foy
Fang/Davy - Damon Passmore
Pistol - Michael Holderer
Bardolph - Eric Neuville
Snare - Chong Won Ham
Shallow - D'Acquistoe Hamner
Henry IV - Yoon Sang Lee
Chief Justice - Matthew Neumann
Warrick - TBA
First Traveller - Benjamin Westbrook
Second Traveler - Laura Koch
Offstage Voices - Michel Bigelow, Luis Rodriguez

Chorus
Michel Bigelow
Morgan Beckford
Claudia Chappa
Grace Gibson
Rebecca Heath
Zendel Hernandez
Joel Henderson
Erin Huddle
Laura Koch
Cherise Lukow
Krista Lundquist
Eric Panter
Elizabeth Pearson
Luis Rodriguez
Thomas Roduta
Daniela Salcedo
William Todd

Director
Octavio Cardenas

Conductor
David Neely

Scenic Design
Szu-Feng Chen

Light Design
Will Sutliff

Costume Design
Sarah Mosher

Composer Biography Gordon Getty, born in Los Angeles in 1933 and residing in San Francisco since 1945, studied piano with Robert Vetleson and voice with Easton Kent during his formative years. As a student at the University of San Francisco he majored in English Literature. His first published piece was the a cappela chorus All Along the Valley (1959). In the early 1960s he enrolled at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying music theory with Sol Joseph, and there composed the Homework Suite (1964) for solo piano. Since the 1980s he has produced a steady stream of compositions, beginning with The White Election (1981), a much-performed cycle of 32 poems by Emily Dickinson for solo singer and piano. Recorded (on the Delos label) by the late soprano Kaaren Erickson, this cycle has been performed in Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and the Pierpont Morgan Library (in New York), the Kennedy Center and National Gallery of Art (in Washington, D.C), and the Hermitage Theater in St. Petersburg Russia, among many other venues. In 1984 he unveiled his opera Plump Jack, an operatic interpretation (to his own libretto, based on Henry….) of Shakespeare’s outrageous but poignant Falstaff. Following premiere performances by the San Francisco Symphony, Plump Jack was revived in semi-staged concert versions by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, and, most recently, in London, by the London Philharmonia, London Voices, and an international cast of soloists. Most of Getty’s compositions, which are published by Rork Music and distributed by Theodore Presser Company, involve the voice. His Victorian Scenes (1989) and Annabel Lee (1990) are choral settings--with orchestra or, optionally, piano--of poems by Tennyson, Housman, and (in the latter work) Poe. Both were premiered by the Los Angeles Master Chorale and Sinfonia at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Los Angeles Music Center. The San Francisco Symphony and the Men of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus performed Annabel Lee in both 1998 and 2004, conducted on those occasions by Michael Tilson Thomas. Getty’s Young America (2001), a cycle of six movements for chorus and orchestra to texts by the composer and by Stephen Vincent Benét, was also performed and recorded in 2004 by the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting. Young America was released (on PentaTone Classics) in 2005 on Getty’s choral music CD, which also includes his Victorian Scenes, Annabel Lee, Three Welsh Songs (1998), and Jerusalem (a choral extract from Plump Jack). Getty’s cantata Joan and the Bells (1998), to the composer’s own libretto about the execution of Joan of Arc, was released in 2003 in a critically acclaimed recording by the Russian National Orchestra, Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, and soloists Lisa Delan and Vladimir Chernov, with Alexander Vedernikov conducting (PentaTone Classics). Joan and the Bells was performed in March 2004 in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle under the baton of Mikhail Pletnev. Since its premiere in 1998, Joan and the Bells has been performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Russia. Getty’s non-vocal compositions include his Three Waltzes for Piano and Orchestra (1988, performed by André Previn and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra), and works for orchestra, chamber ensembles and for solo piano including the ballet suite Ancestor Suite, loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher. His music has been performed in such prestigious venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Vienna’s Brahmssaal, and Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall, as well as at the Aspen and Spoleto Festivals. Getty has been widely applauded for his creative and philanthropic achievements and has received honorary doctorates from the University of Maryland, Pepperdine University, the University of California at San Francisco, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the Mannes College of Music in New York. In 1986 he was honored as an Outstanding American Composer at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and in 2003 he was awarded the Gold Baton of the American Symphony Orchestra League. Of his compositions Getty has said: “My style is undoubtedly tonal, though with hints of atonality, such as any composer would likely use to suggest a degree of disorientation. But I’m strictly tonal in my approach. I represent a viewpoint that stands somewhat apart from the 20th century, which was in large measure a repudiation of the 19th, and a sock in the nose to sentimentality. Whatever it was that the great Victorian composers and poets were trying to achieve, that’s what I’m trying to achieve.” March 21, 2007