Beggar's Opera (John Gay)

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Mar 15 - 05:32 AM

i admit. this film frequently gets only one star in the radio times. i admit, winner was a bit of a plonker.

but Scarborough does look beautiful in this film. Anthony Hopkins gets a chance to play Welsh - and he's quite good at it.

i like it.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 23 Mar 15 - 05:37 PM

DEAR, Big Al Whittle....

You frequently post viable data. HOWEVER, not in this situation.

Please look over your most previous post to this thread.

Perhaps, you could connect the disjointed text.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

sobriety vs dementia test is being presented to MAX...I hope you sign up.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: Murpholly
Date: 23 Mar 15 - 06:52 AM

Bit past that now MGM but the memory lingers on!!

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Mar 15 - 05:07 AM

i love the film of chorus of disaproval - the alan aykbourn play. set in Scarborough, about an amateur production of the beggars opera.

there is a scene where the the betrayed prunella scales looks across the footlights at jeremy irons and the song oh what pain it is to part is playing....tears my heart out every time.

a michael winner film. Scarborough looks dazzlingly beautiful.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Mar 15 - 07:37 AM

In the days of your youth, when you could bill like the dove, eh?

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: Murpholly
Date: 22 Mar 15 - 07:31 AM

Played Di. Traipse when at college. We had great fun performing in the junior common room as theatre in the round with entrances and exits all over the place and us running here there thither and yon to get to the right place at the right time. Even let some men change in the women's common room for three nights as so short of space! Still have my script but seem to have lost my programme. Huh.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Mar 15 - 06:23 AM

I was musical director of a fairly "folkie" interpretation of the piece at the Duke's Playhouse in Lancaster in 1972(I think).

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: Mark Ross
Date: 21 Mar 15 - 10:57 PM

Played a jailer in a summer theater production in the Catskills back in 1966.


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 21 Mar 15 - 09:10 PM

One out of forty USA university theatre produce it.

Free, Fun, and Frivolus it is a crowd pleaser and easy addition to the theatre treasury.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

See "Three Penny Opera" for its clone.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: Weasel
Date: 21 Mar 15 - 06:17 PM

"Let us Take the Road" is a march from the Handel opera - "Rinaldo".

Weasel

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 21 Mar 15 - 05:44 PM

I see the tunes are printed here The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay with midi links.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 May 14 - 06:17 PM

I think Air xxviii, How Cruel Are The Traitors, sung by Lucy in II.ix, is adapted from Handel. There may well be others (Come Sweet Lass has a Handelian sort of sound to it). It was indeed the extravagant style & staging of Handel operas burlesqued, among many other forms of satire; but that no reason why Dr Pepusch should not have adopted some of Handel's airs for Gay's purposes if they were the tunes Gay had in mind in writing the verses.

~M~

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: treewind
Date: 14 May 14 - 04:52 PM

Are there any actual Handel tunes in it?
It was written as a reaction against Handel's lavish opera productions featuring outrageously expensive Italian soloists, and contains occasional parodies of Handelian "Italian opera" style - but does it use any of his actual melodies?

At least one song from the opera, Cease your Funning reappears as the morris tune Constant Billy.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 14 May 14 - 04:31 PM

BEGGAR'S OPERA was the basis for the Kurt Weill-Berthold Brecht
DREIGROSCHENOPER, Polly famously performed by Lotte Lenya. both
im the 1930's German production and film, and the translation
by Marc Blitzstein 1950's NYC production as The Three Penny Opera.

Best wishes, Thomas.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 May 14 - 12:48 PM

Just checked my Amazon channel. Lots of DVDs of both above versions available.

Subject: RE: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 May 14 - 12:10 PM

It's a ballad opera rather than a 'folk opera' -- the airs used range from Handel to to 'Greensleeves' to traditional. There was a very good version on BBC in 1983, which I have on video [nor sure if reissued on DVD], with Roger Daltrey as Macheath. Nice contrast to the other version I have on vid, with Laurence Olivier, a much adapted film version by Peter Brook from 1953. I sometimes play them back-to-back. Some excellent performances in both: particularly value Stanley Holloway as Lockit the jailer in the Brook, and Stratford Johns as Peachum in the Beeb one.

~M~

Subject: Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
From: GUEST,George Frampton
Date: 14 May 14 - 11:50 AM

The BBC included a short feature on John Gay's 'Beggars Opera' in its recent series on The Georgians.

Does anyone know of any 'folk' interpretations of this early folk opera and if it is available on CD? Amazon list one by Jeremy Barlow's Broadside group, and I recall Shirley & Dolly Collins including a selection on one of their albums.

I might have thought someone covered it at a festival at some time in the past. Any offers?