''The Beggar's Opera'' is a
ballad opera The ballad opera is a genre of English stage entertainment that originated in the early 18th century, and continued to develop over the following century and later. Like the earlier '' comédie en vaudeville'' and the later ''Singspiel'', its dist ...
in three acts written in 1728 by
John Gay
John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peac ...
with music arranged by
Johann Christoph Pepusch
Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667 – 1752), also known as John Christopher Pepusch and Dr Pepusch, was a German-born composer who spent most of his working life in England. He was born in Berlin, son of a vicar, and was married to Margherita de ...
. It is one of the watershed plays in
Augustan drama
Augustan drama can refer to the dramas of Ancient Rome during the reign of Caesar Augustus, but it most commonly refers to the plays of Great Britain in the early 18th century, a subset of 18th-century Augustan literature. King George I referre ...
and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Ballad operas were
satiric
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or ...
musical plays that used some of the conventions of opera, but without
recitative
Recitative (, also known by its Italian name "''recitativo''" ()) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repea ...
. The lyrics of the airs in the piece are set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time.
''The Beggar's Opera'' premiered at the
Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the second-longest run in theatre history up to that time (after 146 performances of
Robert Cambert
Robert Cambert (c. 1628–1677) was a French composer principally of opera. His opera '' Pomone'' was the first actual opera in French.
Biography
Under Mazarin
Born in Paris c. 1628, he studied music under Chambonnières. His first position was ...
's ''
Pomone'' in Paris in 1671). The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century". In 1920, ''The Beggar's Opera'' began a revival run of 1,463 performances at the
Lyric Theatre in
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
...
, London, which was one of the longest runs in history for any piece of musical theatre at that time.
The piece satirised
Italian opera
Italian opera is both the art of opera in Italy and opera in the Italian language. Opera was born in Italy around the year 1600 and Italian opera has continued to play a dominant role in the history of the form until the present day. Many famous ...
, which had become popular in London. According to ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'': "Gay wrote the work more as an anti-opera than an opera, one of its attractions to its 18th-century London public being its lampooning of the Italian opera style and the English public's fascination with it."
Instead of the grand music and themes of opera, the work uses familiar tunes and characters that were ordinary people. Some of the songs were by opera composers like
Handel
George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...
, but only the most popular of these were used. The audience could hum along with the music and identify with the characters. The story satirised politics, poverty and injustice, focusing on the theme of corruption at all levels of society.
Lavinia Fenton
Lavinia Powlett, Duchess of Bolton (1708 – 24 January 1760), known by her stagename as Lavinia Fenton, was an English actress who was the mistress and later the wife of the 3rd Duke of Bolton.
She was probably the daughter of a naval lieutenan ...
, the first Polly Peachum, became an overnight success. Her pictures were in great demand, verses were written to her and books published about her. After appearing in several comedies, and then in numerous repetitions of ''The Beggar's Opera'', she ran away with her married lover,
Charles Powlett, 3rd Duke of Bolton
Charles Powlett (sometimes spelled Paulet), 3rd Duke of Bolton (3 September 168526 August 1754), styled Earl of Wiltshire from 1685 until 1699, and Marquess of Winchester from 1699 until 1722, was a British landowner and Whig politician who sat ...
.
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
(working from a translation by
Elisabeth Hauptmann
Elisabeth Hauptmann (20 June 1897, Peckelsheim, Westphalia, German Empire – 20 April 1973, East Berlin) was a German writer who worked with fellow German playwright and director Bertolt Brecht.
She got to know Brecht in 1922, the same year ...
) adapted the work into ''Die Dreigroschenoper'' (''
The Threepenny Opera
''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, ''The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with music ...
'') in 1928, sticking closely to the original plot and characters but with a new libretto, and mostly new music by
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...
.
Origin and analysis
The original idea of the opera came from
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish Satire, satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whig (British political party), Whigs, then for the Tories (British political party), Tories), poe ...
, who wrote to
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 O.S. – 30 May 1744) was an English poet, translator, and satirist of the Enlightenment era who is considered one of the most prominent English poets of the early 18th century. An exponent of Augustan literature, ...
on 30 August 1716 asking "...what think you, of a
Newgate
Newgate was one of the historic seven gates of the London Wall around the City of London and one of the six which date back to Roman times. Newgate lay on the west side of the wall and the road issuing from it headed over the River Fleet to Mid ...
pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
among the thieves and whores there?" Their friend, Gay, decided that it would be a satire rather than a pastoral opera. For his original production in 1728, Gay intended all the songs to be sung without any accompaniment, adding to the shocking and gritty atmosphere of his conception. However, a week or so before the opening night,
John Rich, the theatre director, insisted on having
Johann Christoph Pepusch
Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667 – 1752), also known as John Christopher Pepusch and Dr Pepusch, was a German-born composer who spent most of his working life in England. He was born in Berlin, son of a vicar, and was married to Margherita de ...
, a composer associated with his theatre, write a formal
French overture
The French overture is a musical form widely used in the Baroque period. Its basic formal division is into two parts, which are usually enclosed by double bars and repeat signs. They are complementary in style (slow in dotted rhythms and fast in f ...
(based on two of the songs in the opera, including a
fugue
In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the c ...
based on Lucy's 3rd act song "I'm Like A Skiff on the Ocean Toss'd") and also to arrange the 69 songs. Although there is no external evidence of who the arranger was, inspection of the original 1729 score, formally published by
Dover Books
Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books ...
, demonstrates that Pepusch was the arranger.
The work took satiric aim at the passionate interest of the upper classes in Italian opera, and simultaneously set out to lampoon the notable
Whig statesman
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader ...
, and politicians in general, as well as such notorious criminals as
Jonathan Wild
Jonathan Wild, also spelled Wilde (1682 or 1683 – 24 May 1725), was a London underworld figure notable for operating on both sides of the law, posing as a public-spirited vigilante entitled the "'' Thief-Taker General''". He simultaneously ran ...
, the thief-taker,
Claude Duval
Claude Du Vall (or Duval) (164321 January 1670) was a French highwayman in Restoration England. He came from a family of decayed nobility, and worked in the service of exiled royalists who returned to England under King Charles II. Little else ...
, the highwayman, and
Jack Sheppard
Jack Sheppard (4 March 1702 – 16 November 1724), or "Honest Jack", was a notorious English thief and prison escapee of early 18th-century London.
Born into a poor family, he was apprenticed as a carpenter but took to theft and burglary in ...
, the prison-breaker. It also deals with social inequity on a broad scale, primarily through the comparison of low-class thieves and whores with their aristocratic and bourgeois "betters."
The airs of ''The Beggar's Opera'' in part allude to well-known popular ballads, and Gay's lyrics sometimes play with their wording in order to amuse and entertain the audience. Gay used
Scottish folk melodies mostly taken from the poet
Allan Ramsay's hugely popular collection ''
The Gentle Shepherd
''The Gentle Shepherd'' is a pastoral Comedy#Etymology, comedy by Allan Ramsay (poet), Allan Ramsay. It was first published in 1725 and dedicated to Susanna Montgomery, Lady Eglinton, to whom Ramsay gifted the original manuscript.
The play has ...
'' (1725) plus two French tunes (including the carol "Bergers, écoutez la musique!" for his song "Fill Every Glass"), to serve his hilariously pointed and irreverent texts. Macheath's satire on modern society ("The modes of the court so common are grown") is also sung to Henry Purcell's
Lillibullero
"Lillibullero" (also spelled Lillibulero, Lilliburlero, or Lilli Burlero) is a march attributed to Henry Purcell that became popular in England at the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Background
Henry Purcell is alleged to have c ...
. Pepusch composed an overture and arranged all the tunes shortly before the opening night at Lincoln's Inn Fields on 28 January 1728. However, all that remains of Pepusch's score are the overture (with complete instrumentation) and the melodies of the songs with un
figured bass
Figured bass is musical notation in which numerals and symbols appear above or below (or next to) a bass note. The numerals and symbols (often accidentals) indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones that a musician playing piano, harpsic ...
es. Various reconstructions have been attempted, and a 1990 reconstruction of the score by American composer Jonathan Dobin has been used in a number of modern productions.
[Dobin, Jonathan]
Jonathan Dobin's ''The Beggar's Opera'' website
, accessed 6 November 2009
Gay uses the operatic norm of three acts (as opposed to the standard in spoken drama of the time of five acts), and tightly controls the dialogue and plot so that there are surprises in each of the forty-five fast-paced scenes and 69 short songs. The success of the opera was accompanied by a public desire for keepsakes and mementos, ranging from images of Polly on fans and clothing, playing cards and fire-screens, broadsides featuring all the characters, and the rapidly published musical score of the opera.
The play is sometimes seen to be a reactionary call for
libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
values in response to the growing power of the Whig party.
It may also have been influenced by the then-popular ideology of
John Locke
John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
that men should be allowed their natural liberties; these democratic strains of thought influenced the populist movements of the time, of which ''The Beggar's Opera'' was a part.
The character of
Macheath Captain Macheath is a fictional character who appears both in John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera'' (1728), its sequel ''Polly'' (1777), and roughly 150 years later in Bertolt Brecht's ''The Threepenny Opera'' (1928).
Origins
Macheath made his fir ...
has been considered by critics as both a hero and an anti-hero. Harold Gene Moss, arguing that Macheath is a noble character, has written, "
newhose drives are toward love and the vital passions, Macheath becomes an almost Christ-like victim of the decadence surrounding him." Contrarily, John Richardson in the peer-reviewed journal ''Eighteenth-Century Life'' has argued that Macheath is powerful as a literary figure precisely because he stands against any interpretation, "against expectation and illusion."
He is now thought to have been modeled on the gentleman highwayman, Claude Duval, although interest in criminals had recently been raised by Jack Sheppard's escapes from
Newgate
Newgate was one of the historic seven gates of the London Wall around the City of London and one of the six which date back to Roman times. Newgate lay on the west side of the wall and the road issuing from it headed over the River Fleet to Mid ...
.
''The Beggar's Opera'' has had an influence on all later British stage comedies, especially on nineteenth century British
comic opera
Comic opera, sometimes known as light opera, is a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending and often including spoken dialogue.
Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a ne ...
and the modern musical.
Roles
Synopsis
Act 1
Peachum, a
fence
A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length.
...
and thief-catcher, justifies his actions. Mrs Peachum, overhearing her husband's blacklisting of unproductive thieves, protests regarding one of them: Bob Booty (the nickname of
Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford, (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745; known between 1725 and 1742 as Sir Robert Walpole) was a British statesman and Whig politician who, as First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Leader ...
). The Peachums discover that Polly, their daughter, has secretly married Macheath, the famous
highwayman
A highwayman was a robber who stole from travellers. This type of thief usually travelled and robbed by horse as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot; mounted highwaymen were widely considered to be socially superior to footp ...
, who is Peachum's principal client. Upset to learn they will no longer be able to use Polly in their business, Peachum and his wife ask how Polly will support such a husband "in Gaming, Drinking and Whoring." Nevertheless, they conclude that the match may be more profitable to the Peachums if the husband can be killed for his money. They leave to carry out this errand. However, Polly has hidden Macheath.
Act 2
Macheath goes to a tavern where he is surrounded by women of dubious virtue who, despite their class, compete in displaying perfect drawing-room manners, although the subject of their conversation is their success in picking pockets and shoplifting. Macheath discovers, too late, that two of them (Jenny Diver, Suky Tawdry) have contracted with Peachum to capture him, and he becomes a prisoner in Newgate prison. The prison is run by Peachum's associate, the corrupt jailer Lockit. His daughter, Lucy Lockit, has the opportunity to scold Macheath for having agreed to marry her and then broken this promise. She tells him that to see him tortured would give her pleasure. Macheath pacifies her, but Polly arrives and claims him as her husband. Macheath tells Lucy that Polly is crazy. Lucy helps Macheath to escape by stealing her father's keys. Her father learns of Macheath's promise to marry her and worries that if Macheath is recaptured and hanged, his fortune might be subject to Peachum's claims. Lockit and Peachum discover Macheath's hiding place. They decide to split his fortune.
Act 3
Meanwhile, Polly visits Lucy to try to reach an agreement, but Lucy tries to poison her. Polly narrowly avoids the poisoned drink, and the two girls find out that Macheath has been recaptured owing to the inebriated Mrs Diana Trapes. They plead with their fathers for Macheath's life. However, Macheath now finds that four more pregnant women each claim him as their husband. He declares that he is ready to be hanged. The narrator (the Beggar), notes that although in a properly moral ending Macheath and the other villains would be hanged, the audience demands a happy ending, and so Macheath is reprieved, and all are invited to a dance of celebration, to celebrate his wedding to Polly.
Selected musical numbers
* Can Love be control'd by Advice? (Polly, act 1)
* Let us take the Road (Chorus of Highwaymen, act 2)
* At the Tree I shall suffer (Macheath, act 2)
* How cruel are the Traitors (Lucy, act 2)
* How happy could I be with either (Macheath, act 2)
* In the Days of my Youth (Mrs Diana Trapes, act 3)
* The Charge is prepar'd (Macheath, act 3)
* The Modes of the Court so Common are Grown (Macheath, act 3)
Reaction
''The Beggar's Opera'' was met with widely varying reactions. Its popularity was documented in ''The Craftsman'' with the following entries:
"This Week a Dramatick Entertainment has been exhibited at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, entitled The Beggar's Opera, which has met with a general Applause, insomuch that the Waggs say it has made Rich very Gay, and probably will make Gay very Rich." (3 February 1728)
"We hear that the British Opera, commonly called ''The Beggar's Opera'', continues to be acted, at the Theatre in Lincoln's-Inn Fields with general Applause, to the great Mortification of the Performers and Admirers of the Outlandish Opera in the Haymarket." (17 February 1728)
["The first production." The Beggar's Opera.](_blank)
Accessed 10 August 2011.
Two weeks after opening night, an article appeared in ''The Craftsman'', the leading opposition newspaper, ostensibly protesting at Gay's work as libellous and ironically assisting him in satirising the Walpole establishment by taking the government's side:
It will, I know, be said, by these libertine Stage-Players, that the Satire is general; and that it discovers a Consciousness of Guilt for any particular Man to apply it to Himself. But they seem to forget that there are such things as Innuendo
An innuendo is a hint, insinuation or intimation about a person or thing, especially of a denigrating or derogatory nature. It can also be a remark or question, typically disparaging (also called insinuation), that works obliquely by allusion ...
's (a never-failing Method of explaining Libels)… Nay the very Title of this Piece and the principal Character, which is that of a Highwayman, sufficiently discover the mischievous Design of it; since by this Character every Body will understand One, who makes it his Business arbitrarily to levy and collect Money on the People for his own Use, and of which he always dreads to give an Account – Is not this squinting with a vengeance, and wounding Persons in Authority through the Sides of a common Malefactor?
The commentator notes the Beggar's last remark: "That the lower People have their Vices in a Degree as well as the Rich, and are punished for them," implying that rich People are not so punished.
Criticism of Gay's opera continued long after its publication. In 1776, John Hawkins wrote in his History of Music that due to the opera's popularity, "Rapine and violence have been gradually increasing" solely because the rising generation of young men desired to imitate the character Macheath. Hawkins blamed Gay for tempting these men with "the charms of idleness and criminal pleasure," which Hawkins saw Macheath as representing and glorifying.
Legacy
Sequel
In 1729, Gay wrote a sequel, ''
Polly
Polly is a given name, most often feminine, which originated as a variant of Molly (name), Molly (a diminutive of Mary (name), Mary). Polly may also be a short form of names such as Polina (given name), Polina, Polona (given name), Polona, Paula (g ...
'', set in the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
: Macheath, sentenced to transportation, has escaped and become a pirate, while Mrs Trapes has set up in white-slaving and shanghais Polly to sell her to the wealthy planter Mr Ducat. Polly escapes dressed as a boy, and after many adventures marries the son of a
Carib chief.
The political satire, however, was even more pointed in ''Polly'' than in ''The Beggar's Opera'', with the result that Prime Minister Robert Walpole leaned on the
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain of the Household is the most senior officer of the Royal Household of the United Kingdom, supervising the departments which support and provide advice to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom while also acting as the main cha ...
to have it banned, and it was not performed until fifty years later.
Adaptations
As was typical practice of the time in London, a commemorative "score" of the entire opera was assembled and published quickly. As was common, this consisted of the fully arranged overture followed by the melodies of the 69 songs, supported by only the simplest bass accompaniments. There are no indications of dance music, accompanying instrumental figures or the like, except in three instances: Lucy's "Is Then His Fate Decree'd Sir" – one measure of descending scale marked "Viol." –; Trape's "In the Days of My Youth", in which the "fa la la chorus is written as "viol."; and the final reprieve dance, Macheath's "Thus I Stand Like A Turk", which includes two sections of 16 measures of "dance" marked "viol." (See the 1729 score, formerly published by Dover).
The absence of the original performing parts has allowed producers and arrangers free rein. The tradition of personalised arrangements, dating back at least as far as
Thomas Arne
Thomas Augustine Arne (; 12 March 17105 March 1778) was an English composer. He is best known for his patriotic song "Rule, Britannia!" and the song "A-Hunting We Will Go", the latter composed for a 1777 production of ''The Beggar's Opera'', whic ...
's later 18th century arrangements, continues today, running the gamut of musical styles from Romantic to Baroque: Austin,
Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
,
Sargent,
Bonynge, Dobin and other conductors have each imbued the songs with a personal stamp, highlighting different aspects of characterisation. The hornpipe tune to which
Nancy Dawson danced between acts in ''The Beggar's Opera'' in the mid-1700s is now used for "
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush
"Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" (also titled "Mulberry Bush" or "This Is the Way") is an English nursery rhyme and singing game. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7882. It uses the tune which Nancy Dawson danced into fame in ''Th ...
". Following is a list of some of the most highly regarded 20th-century arrangements and settings of the opera.
* In 1920, the baritone
Frederic Austin
Frederic William Austin (30 March 187210 April 1952) was an English baritone singer, a musical teacher and composer in the period 1905–30. He is best remembered for his restoration and production of ''The Beggar's Opera'' by John Gay and Joha ...
newly arranged the music (and also sang the role of Peachum) for the long-running production (1,463 performances) at the Lyric Theatre,
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is a district of West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It is the administrative centre of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.
...
. The Irish baritone
Frederick Ranalow sang the role of Captain Macheath in every performance. In 1955 this version was recorded by conductor Sir
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent (29 April 1895 – 3 October 1967) was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works. The musical ensembles with which he was associated include ...
with
John Cameron as Macheath and
Monica Sinclair as Lucy.
* In 1928, on the 200th anniversary of the original production,
Bertolt Brecht
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...
(words) and
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fru ...
(music) created a popular new musical adaptation of the work in Germany entitled ''Die Dreigroschenoper'' (''
The Threepenny Opera
''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, ''The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François Villon, with music ...
''). In this work, the original plot is followed fairly closely (although the time is brought forward over a hundred years) but the music is almost all new.
* In 1946,
John La Touche (book and lyrics) and
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...
(music) created another musical adaptation of the work for
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
entitled ''
Beggar's Holiday
''Beggar's Holiday'' is a musical with a book and lyrics by John La Touche and music by Duke Ellington.
History and background
The project originated with black scenic designer Perry Watkins, who envisioned a jazz-driven adaptation of John G ...
''. An updated rendition of the story focused on a corrupt world inhabited by rakish
Mobster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...
s, raffish
Madam
Madam (), or madame ( or ), is a polite and formal form of address for Woman, women in the English language, often contracted to ma'am (pronounced in American English and this way but also in British English). The term derives from the French ...
s and their dissolute
whores
Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...
,
panhandlers
Begging (also panhandling) is the practice of imploring others to grant a favor, often a gift of money, with little or no expectation of reciprocation. A person doing such is called a beggar or panhandler. Beggars may operate in public plac ...
and
street people.
* In 1948,
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
created an adaptation with new harmonisations and arrangements of pre-existing tunes. Additional dialogue was written by the producer,
Tyrone Guthrie
Sir William Tyrone Guthrie (2 July 1900 – 15 May 1971) was an English theatrical director instrumental in the founding of the Stratford Festival of Canada, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at his ...
.
Peter Pears
Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears ( ; 22 June 19103 April 1986) was an English tenor. His career was closely associated with the composer Benjamin Britten, his personal and professional partner for nearly forty years.
Pears' musical career started ...
was the first singer of Macheath. It was dedicated to James Haldane Lawrie, who would go on to chair the English Opera Group.
* The opera was made into a
film version in 1953, and starred
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier (; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the Theatre of the U ...
as Captain Macheath.
* In 1975,
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
playwright (and future president)
Václav Havel
Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then as ...
created a non-musical adaptation.
* In 1977, the Nigerian Nobel Prize-winning playwright and dramatist
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka (Yoruba: ''Akínwándé Olúwọlé Babátúndé Ṣóyíinká''; born 13 July 1934), known as Wole Soyinka (), is a Nigerian playwright, novelist, poet, and essayist in the English language. He was awarded t ...
wrote, produced and directed ''Opera Wonyosi'' (publ. 1981), an adaptation of both John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera'' and Bertolt Brecht's ''The Threepenny Opera''; most of his characters as well as some of the arias are from the two earlier plays.
* In 1978, the Brazilian singer-songwriter
Chico Buarque
Francisco Buarque de Hollanda (born 19 June 1944), popularly known simply as Chico Buarque, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, guitarist, composer, playwright, writer, and poet. He is best known for his music, which often includes social, economic, ...
wrote ''
Ópera do Malandro
''Ópera do Malandro'' (), from 1979, is a Brazilian musical play, written by Chico Buarque and directed by Luiz Antônio Martinez Corrêa.
The play is inspired by the classic ''Beggar's Opera'' of John Gay and the '' Threepenny Opera'', of Bert ...
'' (1978), an adaptation of both John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera'' and Bertolt Brecht's ''The Threepenny Opera,'' with new songs and set in 1940s
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...
,which was later adapted as a film by director
Ruy Guerra
Ruy Alexandre Guerra Coelho Pereira (born August 22, 1931) is a Portuguese-Brazilian film director and screenwriter. Guerra was born a Portuguese citizen in Lourenço Marques (today Maputo) in Mozambique, when it was still a Portuguese colony.
...
.
* In 1981
Richard Bonynge
Richard Alan Bonynge ( ) (born 29 September 1930) is an Australian conductor and pianist. He is the widower of Australian dramatic coloratura soprano Dame Joan Sutherland. Bonynge conducted virtually all of Sutherland's operatic performances ...
and
Douglas Gamley
John Douglas Gamley (13 September 19245 February 1998), generally known as Douglas Gamley, was an Australian composer, who worked on orchestral arrangements and on local, British and American films.
Biography
John Douglas Gamley was born on 1 ...
arranged a new edition for The Australian Opera (now
Opera Australia
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House accompanied by the Opera Australia Orchestra runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of ...
). It was recorded the same year with
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, (7 November 1926 – 10 October 2010) was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano known for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s.
She possessed ...
,
Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa , (; born Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron, 6 March 1944) is a retired New Zealand opera singer. She had a full lyric soprano voice, which has been described as "mellow yet vibrant, warm, ample and unforced". Te ...
,
James Morris and
Angela Lansbury
Dame Angela Brigid Lansbury (October 16, 1925 – October 11, 2022) was an Irish-British and American film, stage, and television actress. Her career spanned eight decades, much of it in the United States, and her work received a great deal ...
.
* The opera was adapted for BBC television in 1983. This production was directed by
Jonathan Miller
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE (21 July 1934 – 27 November 2019) was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 19 ...
and starred
Roger Daltrey
Roger Harry Daltrey (born 1 March 1944) is an English singer, musician and actor. He is a co-founder and the lead singer of the Rock music, rock band The Who.
Daltrey's hit songs with The Who include "My Generation", "Pinball Wizard", "Won't Ge ...
in the role of Macheath,
Stratford Johns
Alan Edgar Stratford Johns (22 September 1925 – 29 January 2002), known as Stratford Johns, was a British stage, film and television actor who is best remembered for his starring role as Detective Inspector Charlie Barlow in the long-running ...
as Peachum,
Gary Tibbs
Gary Tibbs (born Gary Brian Tibbs, 25 January 1958) is a bass guitarist and actor. He is best known as a member of Adam and the Ants and Roxy Music. He appeared alongside Hazel O'Connor in the film '' Breaking Glass'' (1980) as bass guitarist ...
as Filch, and
Bob Hoskins
Robert William Hoskins (26 October 1942 – 29 April 2014) was an English actor. His work included lead roles in films and television series such as '' Pennies from Heaven'' (1978), ''The Long Good Friday'' (1980), ''Mona Lisa'' (1986), ''Who ...
as the Beggar. The "happy" ending was changed so that Macheath is hanged instead of being reprieved.
* In 1984 in the play (and later film) ''
A Chorus of Disapproval'' by
Alan Ayckbourn
Sir Alan Ayckbourn (born 12 April 1939) is a prolific British playwright and director. He has written and produced as of 2021, more than eighty full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of ...
, an amateur production of ''The Beggar's Opera'' is a major plot driver and excerpts are performed.
* In 1990 Jonathan Dobin created his period-styled performing edition for the Ten Ten Players (now Theatre 2020) and it has since been performed at a venues throughout the United States. This edition is based on the 1728 printed edition and includes the full overture as detailed by Pepusch and fleshes out all of the remaining 69 airs and dances of the original 18th century production.
* In 1998, the all female Japanese troupe,
Takarazuka Revue
The is a Japanese all-female musical theatre troupe based in Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of Western-style musicals and stories adapted from films, novels, manga, and Japane ...
, produced an adaptation titled ''Speakeasy''. The play was
Maya Miki
is a Japanese actress and former top star of the Takarazuka Revue. Her real name is . She joined the Takarazuka Revue in 1981. Her debut performance was "Takarazuka Haru no Odori" and she became the top star of the Flower Troupe for her role in ...
's retirement play.
* In 2008 the
Sydney Theatre Company
Sydney Theatre Company (STC) is an Australian theatre company based in Sydney, New South Wales. The company performs in The Wharf Theatre at Dawes Point in The Rocks area of Sydney, as well as the Roslyn Packer Theatre (formerly Sydney Thea ...
of Australia and
Out of Joint Theatre Company
Out of Joint is a British and international touring theatre company based in London. It specialises in the commissioning and production of new writing, interspersed with occasional revivals and classic productions.
It was founded in 1993 by direct ...
co-produced a version entitled ''The Convict's Opera'' written by
Stephen Jeffreys and directed by
Max Stafford-Clark
Maxwell Robert Guthrie Stewart "Max" Stafford-Clark (born 17 March 1941) is a British theatre director.
Life and career
Stafford-Clark was born in Cambridge, England. the son of David Stafford-Clark, a physician, and Dorothy Crossley (née Old ...
. This version is set aboard a convict ship bound for
New South Wales
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
, where convicts are putting on a version of ''The Beggar's Opera''. The lives of the convicts partly mirror their characters in ''The Beggars' Opera'', and modern popular songs are performed throughout the piece. ''The Convict's Opera'' began touring the UK in early 2009.
* The theatre company
Vanishing Point
A vanishing point is a point on the image plane of a perspective drawing where the two-dimensional perspective projections of mutually parallel lines in three-dimensional space appear to converge. When the set of parallel lines is perpendicul ...
created a modern production of ''The Beggar's Opera'' in 2009 for The
Royal Lyceum Theatre
The Royal Lyceum Theatre is a 658-seat theatre in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, named after the Theatre Royal Lyceum and English Opera House, the residence at the time of legendary Shakespearean actor Henry Irving. It was built in 1883 by a ...
and
Belgrade Theatre
The Belgrade Theatre is a live performance venue in Coventry, England. It was the first civic theatre to be built in Britain after the Second World War and is now a Grade II listed building.
Background
Coventry was the fastest growing city in ...
, Coventry, set in a near-future apocalypse world. It features music from
A Band Called Quinn.
* The original opera was performed in an 18th-century setting at the
Regent's Park Open Air Theatre
Regent's Park Open Air Theatre is an open-air theatre in Regent's Park in central London.
The theatre
Established in 1932, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is one of the largest theatres in London (1,256 seats) and is situated in Queen Mary ...
in summer 2011 in a production directed by
Lucy Bailey
Lucy is an English feminine given name derived from the Latin masculine given name Lucius with the meaning ''as of light'' (''born at dawn or daylight'', maybe also ''shiny'', or ''of light complexion''). Alternative spellings are Luci, Luce, Luc ...
.
* In 2019,
Kneehigh Theatre Company in association with
Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse created and toured a reinvention of ''The Beggar's Opera'', called ''Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs)''.
*In 2021, French mezzo-soprano and composer Hélène Ducos created ''Minuit Montmartre'', a four-act opera inspired by ''The Beggar's Opera''. The first performance took place in Paris on July 10.
"''Minuit Montmartre'' par Des Voix Sur Les Planches
July 2021, helloasso.com (in French)
References
Sources
*
External links
Vocal score used in 1920 Lyric Hammersmith revival
Libretto
University of Oxford Text Archive
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Beggars Opera, The
Works by John Gay
Operas by Johann Christoph Pepusch
Operas by Benjamin Britten
English-language operas
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
Ballad operas
1728 operas
Operas
Operas adapted into films
Operas set in London
Robert Walpole