San Francisco Classical Voice

OPERA REVIEW Visiting the Other Falstaff Opera
July 21, 2002

Kay Kleinerman (Boy)
Jo Vincent Parks (Falstaff)

By Robert P. Commanday

City Summer Opera last week took on a worthy project, producing Gordon Getty's Plump Jack in the Diego Rivera Theater of the City College of San Francisco. The third of five performances, seen Sunday, was creditable. Mounted by the CCSF drama and music departments, the production was the 17th of CCSF's adventurous summer operas, and while hardly putting Plump Jack over the top, it "did no harm."

In its telling of the Falstaff story in Shakespeare's words, from Henry IV ( Parts 1 & 2) and Henry V, the opera has good musical bones. Much or most of the music is in the continuity of accompanied recitative and arioso, the style consistent and true in Getty's own voice. He catches the rhythm, locution and musical feel of Shakespeare in a melodious way, grateful to that special prose, making it direct and meaningful. Of course, that too depends on the singers, but in this case, only three of them or so projected those words clearly enough.

Then too, and inevitably because Getty follows the Falstaff story as it threads through Shakespeare's three plays, Plump Jack is played in many scenes (12), requiring almost as many momentum-breaking set changes. There's where music from the orchestra is needed, not just to cover the breaks, but to extend and develop some of the attractive and promising musical ideas, intermezzos to sustain a mood or anticipate a scene. In the prelude to Act II, that does happen handsomely . But such music as that associated with the innocent pair of travelers who are set upon and robbed by Falstaff, Pistol and Bardolph, is lovely, and deserves expansion. So too the music in the death scene of Henry IV, and at the coronation of Prince Hal.

Scenic tradeoffs

The scenery, from an earlier production by Marin Opera, is handsome, designed by Peter Crompton in the style of the Elizabethan period. It works well, the units combined variously to suggest the several locations. Even the glimpses, through gaps between the set pieces, of the good 20-piece orchestra playing behind the scenes in the semi-darkness, enhanced the scenic impression. There was a fair trade-off in its back stage position. Even though the distancing of the orchestra's sound may have diminished or lost the effect of some color in Getty's score, the nuance and presence, the music still was conveyed substantially, under Michael Shahani's secure leadership. (The conductor was visible to the performers via TV monitors on the auditorium's walls.)

Jo Vincent Parks gave a good, lively account of the central figure, with the confidence essential to bring off the lovable braggart, con man. He had, in fact, a bit more strength and projection in his generous baritone than needed. More coloration would have been better. Another strong one was Kay Kleinerman, soprano, double cast as Boy (aka Poins) and young Prince Clarence, keen in her action and expression, clean in delivery. William Brockmeier was an effective presence as Davy and as Henry IV, although as the latter, the covered and heavy character of his voice worked against word projection. That was also true of the singing of David Parr as Chief Justice though with a bit more clarity, and he was a fairly imposing figure. Parr directed the production smartly, given some of the cast's inexperience. He kept gesture and movement up, but in the scale of the small stage, and made few stand for many.

The cast of 21 were adults from the community, most of whom enrolled in voice classes at CCSF. John Lum (Prince Hal), his tenor not really set, was not ready for prime time and such a prominent role; John Lehrack portrayed Justice Shallow in good, crochety, sly character, and John Warner, Pistol as a supportive accessory henchman, but without defining personality. While both were experienced and sang on target, they had not the clarity of diction the roles and Getty's settings demand. Elender Hall, in her acting, established the person of that pivotal role, Mistress Quickly, well enough, but her voice, insistently straight, without vibrato and the essential focus, was not sympathetic and could not project the music's ample expressive characterization.

Key and touching moments

Despite shortcomings in what was a community, not a company, production — the scene change gaps interrupting dramatic momentum, the diction, some awkward vocalism and such things — the dramatic line of Plump Jack held up. Certain key and touching moments, like Henry IV's lament of his son's wayward ways, the newly elevated Henry V's rejection of Falstaff, and Falstaff's death (offstage) were conveyed in the music and action more than in the singing. It would be fine if other dramatic focal points were expanded in aria, strengthening the opera's profile. Commercial production would insist on it and Getty's music has the material that could generate it. The remaining performances of this production occur on Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m.

(Robert P. Commanday, the editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. )