Based on the beloved 1934 novella Goodbye, Mr. Chips and other stories by James Hilton, the opera tells the heart-warming story of a teacher at Brookfield, an English boarding school for boys, to which “Chips” devotes most of his adult life. The opera chronicles Chips’ story of love, loss and learning over his decades-long tenure at Brookfield. We are reminded of the influence a dedicated teacher can have as we witness Chips and his “children”—“thousands of them, and all boys”—enrich each other’s lives.
Goodbye, Mr. Chips, a studio recording, features Nathan Granner, Melody Moore, Lester Lynch, and Kevin Short, as well as the San Francisco Boys Chorus (Ian Robertson, artistic director) and Barbary Coast Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Doubin.
As both composer and librettist, Getty has shaped Hilton’s cherished story into a memory play in which the protagonist looks back on important episodes of his life. The opera uncovers the rich interior lives of the characters, rendering their personal journeys with great sensitivity. Just like Chips, Getty treats each personality with a profound understanding of—and regard for—the human spirit, with all its strengths and flaws. For Getty, after decades of fascination with the character and story of “Mr. Chips,” the completion of this opera is the realization of a long-held dream.
COMPOSER’S NOTES
Hilton’s masterpiece is largely a series of vignettes where few characters, Chips and Kathie aside, appear or are mentioned in more than one scene. Opera and the spoken stage tend to work best when we follow a few characters over time. Thus Doctor Merrivale, who is found only in the opening scene of the book, becomes the narrator who guides us through the opera. Likewise, Kathie reappears in flashbacks long after her early death in childbirth.
One of the recurring themes in the book is the loss of Chips’ old students, one after another, in the Great War. I express this powerful idea by making sure that all three students whom we meet by name before the war die in it, and are seen again in ghostly presence as Chips reports their loss to the student body in chapel, and once more in his deathbed delirium.
Chips’ antagonist is the overbearing new headmaster Ralston, who sees Chips’ ways as slack and old-fashioned, and demands that Chips retire. Ralston gets his comeuppance when the school backs Chips. He moves on, and does not reappear in the novel. I adapt one of Hilton’s short stories about Chips to bring Ralston back at the end. In that story, an old student faces twelve years in prison for grand larceny, worries that the scandal will ruin the chances of his son’s admission to Brookfield, and asks and receives Chips’ promise to help. I make the son a grandson, and turn the old student into Ralston.
These retouches to expand the roles of Merrivale, Kathie, the three students and Ralston allow the audience to see familiar faces and hear familiar voices from scene to scene. That somehow seemed right to me, and offered the practical advantages of role consolidation without much changing of Hilton’s beautiful design.
One problem in staging the opera is Chips’ quick changes in age from 85 to 48, and then back again, in the scenes of Kathie’s first appearance in Act I, and her last near the end of Act 2. One nice solution is for an actor to mime the few lines of the 48-year-old Chips while the real Chips sings them, just as they do in the scene of Chips’ vigil, in Act 2, where Chips prays for the rescue of Grayson’s father.
Another issue in staging concerns the Linford scene near the end of Act 2. Kathie, on her deathbed, had promised Chips, “I will knock on your door, and take your hand, and help you down the mountain one more time.” My idea, and Hilton’s too, I think, is that Kathie is somehow keeping her word through Linford. I make this point clear to the audience by requiring the soprano who sings Kathie to sing Linford also.
It is also possible for her to act the part herself, or for a child actor to mime it while she is seen or projected singing from behind or outside.