Whenever a venerable literary property is reincarnated into another medium, one must initially ask if, why and how it speaks anew. This operatic version of Goodbye, Mr Chips might be expected to tap into misty-eyed nostalgia for the pre-First World War British culture of boarding schools for boys and their headmasters – as embodied by the fictitious Charles Edward Chipping. Not so with Gordon Getty, the California-based arts philanthropist who also has an extensive but underestimated history as a ‘Sunday composer’. His portrayal of this tiny, elite culturally distant corner of the world doesn’t begin promisingly but builds into a quiet but penetrating retelling that concentrates on universal themes such as the value of family and the devastation of loss. Yes, certain school rituals are acknowledged in this blessedly innocent milieu. But it’s peripheral scene-setting for a parable of surviving life’s heaviest weather.

Getty’s own libretto, adapting the 1934 novella by James Hilton (plus some of the author’s later postscripts to the Mr Chips canon), initially places the show-don’t-tell rule of theatre on hold: the story is more recounted than dramatised, playing more like a multi-character song-cycle than an opera. This is not ineptness but strategy: the plot is streamlined to get to the hard-won owl-and-pussycat marriage between Chips and the woman he never thought he deserved. His charismatic wife Kathie had surprisingly limited screen time in the classic 1939 film version, in which she dies in childbirth. The 1969 musical film gave greater presence to the character, updated to the Second World War, though the story, more expansively told in Terence Rattigan’s screenplay, left curiously little room for music. Getty the librettist allows ample leeway to Getty the composer, whose neo-tonal language – more respected now than 20 years ago – is readily comparable to Gian Carlo Menotti’s melodic but not necessarily tuneful idiom. Getty doesn’t aim to please; he aims to move. Talking to their deceased loved ones is a way of life for some – and in the case of Mr Chips, Kathie answers back, making her a pervasive after-death presence. The composer’s Wikipedia bio suggests why he achieves such emotional authenticity with only a few well-chosen notes: he has personally experienced significant family losses. It’s all over the score, which wears its emotional depths in the understated manner appropriate to the Mr Chips character.

At times, Act 2 seems laden with one poignant scene too many – were it not for the power of one of the opera’s culminating events: when a Mr Chips adversary shows up asking for favours, what could have been a routine forgiveness scene blooms into a search for reasons to live amid hopeless circumstances. Thus the central theme is far from the durability of tradition or the value of a classical education, but reasons to carry on amid disillusioning world-changing catastrophes.

The scoring uses the orchestra sparingly. Incidental woodwind solos do much of the storytelling, though some of the more obvious touches include celesta at the mention of children and harps in moments of magic realism. Getty’s dramatic compass also goes a bit off course as school politics become as weighty as the machinations of Das Rheingold.

Covid circumstances apparently prompted a rethinking of the opera into the film medium (a version I haven’t seen), though the opera still seems viable for the stage. Certainly, the Barbary Coast Orchestra under Dennis Doubin and the good cast of singers would benefit from living longer with the opera, particularly in finding a mode of vocal articulation (slanted more towards speech than singing) that suits the more narrative sections. The bigger question is whether the singers can scale back their voices for the many intimate moments. In the title-role, Nathan Granner does so with a rich range of colouring from an introspective use of head voice to a more vividly commanding manner when getting things done.

Mezzo-soprano Melody Moore is less ideal casting for Kathie, if only because her ample sound puts a bit of damper on the vivid emotions at hand. Lester Lynch is better employed with Verdi, but the benevolence he exudes as Dr Merrivale (Chips’s doctor) is stronger than the magnitude of his voice. As the ruthless Rolston, Kevin Short’s forceful manner is a welcome counterbalance to the ultra-civilised veneer that pervades in the story. Like Mr Chips himself, this opera isn’t out to change the world, but it may make a small part of it better.