John Gay and the London theatre
The Beggar's Opera, often referred to today as the first musical comedy, was the most popular dramatic piece of the eighteenth century - and is the work that John Gay (1685-1732) is best remembered for having written. That association of popular music and satiric lyrics has proved to be continuingly attractive and variations on the Opera have flourished in this century: by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, by Duke Ellington, and most recently by Vaclav Havel. The original opera itself is played all over the world in amateur and professional productions
Print Book, English, ©1993
University Press of Kentucky, Lexington, ©1993
History
xvi, 212 pages ; 23 cm
9780813118321, 0813118328
26973762
Apprenticeship-A prelude
The Mohocks
Chaucer in Augustan England
Words and music
False Starts
The beggar and his Opera
The Beggar's Opera in theatre history
The Opera as work of art
Polly and the censors
Last plays