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THE BEGGAR'S OPERAMacheath, Peachum, and Lockit, these are just some of the players in the 178 ballad opera called The Beggar's Opera. The Beggar's Opera was the first real English ballad opera and, by almost any measure, the most popular English theater work of the eighteenth century. Of course you can't read about the Beggar's opera, without reading about the man who created such a brilliant satire. On September 16, 1685, during the reign of Charles II, a man by the name of John Gay was born. Although an orphan until the age of ten, his kind uncle raised and schooled Gay throughout his life. As he became older, Gay became a mercer, which he disliked very much. In 171, Gay became the secretary to the Duchess of Monmouth. Immediately after losing a small fortune in the South Sea, Gay was appointed Lottery Commissioner, a job he held for the rest of his life. Gay never married, and divided his time among his friends, especially the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry and the members of the Scriblerians, including Swift and Pope. In 17, Gay returned to London, where he died on December 4 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.After Gay wrote "The Beggar's Opera", he made a substantial amount of money by selling the copyright to John Watts on February 6, 178. Watts printed the music on copper plates; without words, in two separate gatherings at the end, and published the text is octavo. The public did not like the way that the music was being published and demanded the music and lyrics together on one sheet. Watts agreed to the urges of the
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public and published another text in a second octavo on April , 178. The text of the second octavo underwent several substantive changes The alteration of a sentence in Act 1 scene 6, the addition of have in the first line of Air 7, the continuous numbering of the Airs throughout the play, the addition of a sentence in Act scene 4, and the change of weary to wary in Air 40. But what was the Beggar's Opera? What did it consist of? And what was it about? The Beggar's Opera is a comic farce or satire, which pokes fun at the fashion in Italian operas, as well as the social and political conditions of the age. It established a new genre, the "ballad opera," which remains the only really notable example, though its popularity led to the work of Sheridan and eventually Gilbert and Sullivan. Gay cuts the standard five acts to three, and tightly controls the dialogue and plot so that there are delightful surprises in each of the forty-five fast-paced scenes. The introduction is amusing dialogue between The Beggar and The Player. The Beggar begins by explaining his opera to the Player; here Gay takes the opportunity through the Beggar to explain himself to the audience, and even apologizes for the informality of the piece. The Beggar "I hope I may be forgiven, that I have not made my opera throughout unnatural, like those in vogue; for I have no Recitative Expecting this, as I have consented to have neither Prologue nor Epilogue, it must be allow'd an opera in all its forms." (Gay ) He uses the player to relate to the audience and reassure them about the "merit" of the Gay himself, the Player "As we live by the Muses, 'tis but gratitude in us to encourage poetical merit wherever we find it. The Muses…pay no distinction to dress, and never partially mistake the pertness of embroidery for wit, nor the modesty of want for dulness. Be author who he will, we push his play as far as it will go." (Gay ). The Beggar and the Player are hurried as Act 1 begins. The Setting is in Peachum's house, where he is going over his accounts, and he rationalizes his own hand in the industry of the trade of stolen goods, with an Air that gives us the theme of the play itself. Titled "An Old Woman Clothed in Gray" Peachum sings "Through all the employments of life, each neighbor abuses his brother; Whore and rogue they call husband and wife; All professions be-rogue one another." (Gay ). He goes on to berate every realm of professional employment and reasons that they all manage to cheat each other. The following scenes introduce us to Filch, a thief whom Peachum employs, Mrs. Peachum and the dilemma that exists about their daughter. It is rumored that their daughter Polly has "taken a fancy" of gang leader and womanizer Captain Macheath and they soon learn through the prying of Filch and the confessions of Polly herself. Polly first enters with her father Peachum trying to convince of the falsehood of the rumors through one of the most famous and popular Airs of the Opera, Air 6 or "What Shall I Do To Show How Much I Love Her." Polly sings "Virgins are like the fair flower in its luster…But, when once plucked, 'tis no longer alluring." (Gay 1). Telling her father she knows how a lady is to handle herself towards Captain Macheath. As the truth is quickly revealed that Polly and Macheath are married, Peachum devises a plan in which Polly will have her husband hung and receive her dowry. The Act ends with Polly retreating to her room where she has Macheath hidden. The final scenes of the opera collapse in on Macheath, as he drinks himself into a song. In a series of ten emotionally moving and melodramatic songs Macheath sings an empty reassurance to himself. He then sings to the tune of green sleeves "Since laws were made for ev'ry degree, to curb vice in others, as well as me, I wonder we han't better company upon Tyburn tree!" Upon concluding the tune enters two men from Macheath's gang who promises to fulfill his last request of seeing Peachum and Lockit to the gallows themselves. Lucy and Polly follow, weeping over the misfortune of their beloved husband, when suddenly four more wives enter, each carrying a baby. Macheath seeing the evidence before him pulls away from his wives saying "Four wives more! This is too much, go tell the sheriffs office I am ready." The Beggar and the Player come out to conclude the Opera. The Player is astonished that the Beggar would have Macheath executed and the Beggar explains "To make the piece perfect I was for doing strict poetical justice. Macheath is to be hanged." The Player responds that this would not be to the taste of the town for the people did not come to see a tragedy. And so The Beggar invites Macheaths reprise in which he confesses his love and marriage to Polly and proclaims a celebration in which everyone dances and the happy moral ending is restored. Obviously John Gay completely reverses the norm of a typical opera while making The Beggar's Opera, but many critics would question the meaning of this ballad opera. Critics of The Beggar's Opera remain surprisingly puzzled on elementary interpretive problems. The key issues, according to critics, are the standards of judgment that are applied to the characters, events, and sentiments of this non-opera. Response to the work must depend heavily on the standards brought to it, since the play itself doesn't present us with explicit values and judgments. Seemingly Gay either assumed that the audience would know what standards to apply, or intended to leave at least some part of his audience puzzled and uneasy. Another question critics ask is if The Beggar's Opera is a satire, what does it attack? Most critics have taken an alternative to the multiplicity of the satiric targets. The satiric objects are politics, Italian opera, literary forms (especially comedy of sentiment, tragedy, and the happy-ending convention in opera), and society's structure and conventions. John Gay and his Beggar's Opera is something to remember. Gay allowed us to make light of the truths of morality. It's easy to see why this work was the most popular work of the eighteenth century.
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