'The Beggar's Opera', written by the poet John Gay, was rowdy, bawdy, bolshy and witty rejection of (among other targets) the Italian opera format and style that had dominated British theatres during Handel’s years of success.
Opera? Often described as the first musical, and also as an anti-opera, it has no libretto as such, and no composer. Like most modern musicals, it features hummable, memorable songs glued together with bitsy action and dialog. And as an anti-opera, it blew up the settled high art and high society celebration of the rigid Italian art form.
The words were a play by a poet, polemical, political, highly ironical and clever. The music is a bundle of then-popular street ballads, folk tunes and current hits (including a few of Handel’s!) This form was in the eighteenth century known as a ‘ballad opera’. (It’s the only ballad opera still performed.)
The aim was to entertain a much wider audience than the Italian opera style it attacked - and to do so by celebrating the ‘lower’ life of London, its rude rejection of high art and its irreverent views on the ruling classes. The targets of this raucous satire were current corrupt politicians (particularly Robert Walpole) and current rigid fashions of literature and – above all – opera.
Whether the politicians deserved this attack – or were affected by it - is another topic. Burke, at least, regarded Walpole, as ‘far from governing by corruption. He governed by party attachments. The charge of systematic corruption is less applicable to him, perhaps, than to any minister who ever served the crown for so great a length of time.’ Read here some of his poetry and all about the complex man who is still the longest serving PM of Britain – and likely to hold that title for some time in the future!
One thing’s for sure: The Beggar’s Opera, premiered in 1728, changed opera in Britain forever. And it lasted longer than most eighteenth century operas, and in many different forms.
Gay and his play
Gay's known now mainly for this non-opera, and was known then mainly for hanging out with two far more prominent poets, Pope and Swift. He was a member of their Scriblerus Club, a group whose chief aim was to ridicule pedantry. His poetry output was small - read about it here. In 1718, Gay had a success with an earlier libretto for - yes - Handel; Acis and Gallatea. Described as 'the pinnacle of pastoral opera in England', it was a formal opera about mythical characters - hardly foretelling what he was to produce a decade later. (It was also Handel's first full opera to an English text.)
Gay came from poor family but later enjoyed aristocratic patronage and income; he did very well from the Beggar's Opera but lost his fortune after investing, against advice, in South Sea Company. (Handel, by the way, got out in time!)
He died in 1732 and is buried in Westminster Abbey. His epitaph, written by Alexander Pope, ends with a couplet from Gay, probably the second reason he's now remembered:
Life is a jest, and all things show it,
I thought so once, but now I know it.
If Poverty be a Title to Poetry...
The opera opens with these words from the Beggar: ‘If Poverty be a Title to Poetry, I am sure no-body can dispute mine.’ Yes, the apostrophe in the opera's title is in the right place - John Gay announced with this title that his anti-opera was created by a beggar, from the knowledge a beggar has of the lowly levels of society. So it’s the Beggar’s Opera.
But it’s not just about poverty. The first song – by the crooked Peachum – digs further into the corruption of the upper classes.
Through all the Employments of Life
Each Neighbour abuses his Brother;
Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife:
All Professions be-rogue one another:
The Priest calls the Lawyer a Cheat,
The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine:
And the Statesman, because he’s so great,
Thinks his Trade as honest as mine.
‘A Lawyer is an honest Employment,’ opines Peachum, adding, ‘So is mine. Like me too he acts in a double Capacity, both against Rogues and for ’em; for ’tis but fitting that we should protect and encourage Cheats, since we live by them.’
It was shocking then, and immediately popular though not as wildly original as the response suggested. Gay was drawing on a French tradition, comédie en vaudeville, street theatre out of commedia dell’arte. Morally, and politically, the scene is set. There’s a splendid account of the contexts from the British Library here. Dramatically, it’s a rollicking story of betrayal and deceit – with an improbable happy ending. Here’s all you need to know, and a synopsis, from Wikipedia.
A taste of this Opera
Start by reading it! It’s best approached from Gay’s play. The full libretto is here.
Or, if you dodge reading librettos, play the opening to the BBC production on YouTube. It stuck close to the original text, editing as necessary to make it understandable (in 1963). The beggar announces his authorship and then becomes a sort of narrator. This is your best recording for home listening. The sound isn't the best, and there are no subtitles, but it’s in English! Picture is OK (black and white). The music is excellent – and it features ‘real’ opera singers! Polly Peachum is played by Janet Baker, and Macheath by Kenneth McKellar
Or depart from the libretto and start with an amateur production from FAMS, Northern beaches, NSW, in 2016. It’s on YouTube in full here. They provided a splendid introduction by “Gay” about modern opera.
There’s one more full opera offering on YouTube; the film Peter Brook made (in 1953) with Laurence Olivier as an elegant and beautifully spoken highwayman version of Macheath - with Stanley Holloway as Lockit. It’s here. But the buzz on the audio and ragged visuals defy watching, and Olivier and Brooks (who had a difficult partnership in this production) departed far from Gay’s work. For a quick glimpse, here’s Olivier (who did his own singing) with Dorothy Tutin in the duet, ‘Over the hills and far away’.
Then and now – an operatic journey
The music was the first aspect to be changed. An overture was added, immediately before the opening, despite Gay’s insistence that the play started without this operatic convention. Later, the music, originally a pastiche of popular tunes, was adapted (as in the BBC production) by Benjamin Britten (in 1948).
But meanwhile, in 1928, 200 years after the first performance, The Beggar’s Opera begat a very different new opera. With a new libretto and very similar plot, written by Bertolt Brecht (working from a translation) it became Die Dreigroschenoper - The Threepenny Opera. The music, almost all new, was by Kurt Weill.
And that, as Peachum would say, is another story, for another post. Don’t miss next instalment! And meanwhile, here’s Satchmo celebrating the now truly evil Macheath, (dear).
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