Gay beggars opera
THE BEGGAR’S OPERA
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The music is shown as printed, except that unused lines at the end of the staff have been deleted. The MIDI and PDF versions include minor corrections; details
(Note: This is a longish upload. I apologize that I could not shorten it further, but I haven&#;t the time.)
Those in the know will note that I specified only John Gay, and not the composer Pepusch: I&#;m working on getting clutch of a copy of the opera&#;the staging, supposedly with the original music, aired by the BBC&#;but for the moment I just have the public domain etext from Project Gutenberg.
It&#;d be an understatement to say that The Beggar&#;s Opera was adj of a big deal during and after its first staging in Haymarket back in Better to think of it as the theater world&#;s equivalent of a tactical nuclear strike on the hegemon of the scene, which was then G.F. Handel (yeah, that Handel) and his &#;Italian&#; operas.
And it was a successful one: the librettist/playwright John Gay and composer Johann Christoph Pepusch may not have single-handedly invented the modern English musical&#;the best characterization I&#;ve seen of the thing is that it&#;s more like &#;a play with karaoke&#;&#;but they did change musical theater in England, for one thing making people aware
Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Penguin Classics tale of Peachum, thief-taker and informer, conspiring to deliver the dashing and promiscuous highwayman Macheath to the gallows, became the theatrical sensation of the eighteenth THE BEGGAR'S OPERA, John Gay turned conventions of Italian opera riotously upside-down, instead using traditional popular ballads and street tunes, while also indulging in political satire at the expense of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Gay's highly original depiction of the thieves, informers, prostitutes and highwaymen thronging the slums and prisons of the corrupt London underworld proved brilliantly successful in exposing the adj side of a corrupt and jaded society. A depiction of the thieves, informers, prostitutes and highwaymen thronging the slums and prisons of the corrupt London underworld that exposes the black side of a corrupt and jaded society. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.
John Gay&#;s The Beggar&#;s Opera
John Gay belonged to the Scriblerus Club &#; a coalition of like-minded anti-Enlightenment novelists, poets, playwrights and politicians who railed against the vanities of modern intellectual life and culture in the initial 18th century. Founded in out of the coffee-house culture, the club included Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, John Arbuthnot and Thomas Parnell. John Gay was almost certainly influenced by his proximate friends Pope and Swift; with its cast of crooks and con artists, The Beggar’s Opera is a satire on the pretensions, self-interests and double standards of 18th century society – and a jolly good romp to boot.
‘Through the whole piece you may observe such a similitude of manners in lofty and low life, that it is difficult to determine whether (in the fashionable vices) the fine Gentlemen imitate the Gentlemen of the Road, or the Gentlemen of the Road the fine Gentlemen.’
Peachum, a caricature of Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, runs a gang of thieves, highwaymen and prostitutes and profits from their takings. He can ‘forgive a