Britten;Benjamin Beggars Opera

The neglected Cinderella of Britten's operas, "The Beggar's Opera" (1948) has begun to receive more attention recently. Rightly so, in my opinion:
harmonic and orchestral invention is as strong as in the contemporaneous "Rape of Lucretia" and "Albert Herring," and the way Britten sometimes links several of the short tunes of John Gay's 1728 "ballad opera" into coherent longer sequences is always ingenious and sometimes brilliant. This isn't just an "arrangement," but a provocative modern re-imagining, akin to the composer's very individual treatment of folksongs - and, like these, no doubt destined to remain controversial.
The only complete recording came in 1993 (Argo), with Steuart Bedford leading an excellent orchestra and an experienced cast of singer-actors. For some reason, Decca omitted this from its big Britten boxes, so it was left to Arkiv Music to come to the rescue and reissue it (check their website).
More recently, Pearl has brought out a single CD (in poor off-the-air sound) of a substantial portion of a broadcast of 22 September 1948, the closest to an "original cast recording" we are ever likely to have, though this studio version omits 8 numbers and adapts the spoken text drastically. Still, to hear Peter Pears, Nancy Evans, et al. sing the roles they "created," under Britten's baton, is wonderful.
As is this black-and white version (in mono) from 1963. Be warned, however: this isn't a complete, original studio production like those of "Billy Budd," "Peter Grimes" and "Owen Wingrave" (the last composed for TV) issued in this series, but an abridged (18 of 55 numbers omitted) studio adaptation of the then-new second English Opera Group production. Furthermore, if we are to believe the DVD booklet, it was all shot in a mere 3 hours, and occasionally it shows. Yet the rough edges work just fine for this piece, which after all is very self-consciously an opera being presented on a stage, and a rag-tag low-life one at that: the heavy character make-up that looks grotesque in close-up, the obvious lack of liquid in drinking vessels, even the occasional technical hitch, as when a curtain gets stuck on the tenor's shoulder and the mezzo discreetly unhooks it - all this is completely in the spirit of the piece. Even the slight edge of manic energy verging on exhaustion during the finale feels appropriate.
But what makes it worth seeing and hearing, apart from the late Colin Graham's very lively production - he does some shrewd editing of Gay's original dialogue - is the work of a fine group of singers and instrumentalists under the excellent direction of conductor Meredith Davies. Anna Pollak and David Kelly are a sharp and vinegary pair as the Peachums, Bryan Drake a sonorous Lockit, Joan Edwards a dark-tempered Jenny Diver and Edith Coates an over-the-top Mrs. Trapes. Above all, there is the central love triangle, anchored in tenor Kenneth McKellar's dashing and virile Capt. Macheath, a man capable of both great charm and great cruelty (and some beautiful singing). Lucy Lockit may not give soprano Heather Harper much opportunity to display the full beauty of her voice, but the way she spits out the word "rrrat" in her first number is irresistible. Finally, Janet Baker's Polly is a joy, gorgeously sung and acted with a delicate mix of sincerity and tongue-in-cheek - how lovely to have a souvenir of her comic stage work to put alongside her Julius Caesar, Mary Stuart, Orpheus, two Didos and Britten's Kate ("Owen Wingrave").
Again: though Decca have done what appears to be an excellent job of refurbishing the original tape (especially the audio) don't expect the high technical polish of other titles in this series, and you are likely to find much to enjoy.

As the first reviewer has pointed out, this is a black and white BBC production from the early sixties which has been revitalized as best the technicians can manage. Never mind. There may be some frustrated whines from your super sound system and an occasional groan from your super-vitalized DVD player and monitor but, the play still being the thing, you will have many enjoyable minutes. One has the feeling of being at a live performance with live actors vigorously playing to a live audience.Being made for black and white, it suits that format admirably and one has no sense of color being missed. The action is frantic, the enunciation perfect for an American audience (although I did use the subtitles as a safety net for the aging system which is my natural audio receptors)the voices outstanding in every instance and the acting right on the mark (and even the one-time lapse of the camera in following an actor in mid-song detracts not at all). Other versions are available, I have the 1984 one directed by Jonathan Miller ready for playing tomorrow, I doubt if they will be directly competitive with this, there being so much leeway for interpretation in performance by individual groups. At least, at the moment, the price is right on Amazon, so it is a good time to buy. (To be fair, I better add, that it might be available at the same or better price at other retailers---no commercial favoritism in this quarter.)

The Beggar's Opera was a "ballad opera" in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay. It's the only example of the once thriving genre of ballad operas that is ever staged today. Ballad operas were comic musical plays that used some of the conventions of Italian opera but with spoken dialogue instead of recitativo. The lyrics were set to popular broadsheet ballads, opera arias, church hymns and folk tunes of the time. The Beggar's Opera premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the longest run in theatre history up to that time. The original production was so successful that John Rich, the manager of the theatre, was able to build a new theatre, the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, forerunner of the Royal Opera House. In 1920, The Beggar's Opera began an astonishing revival run of 1,463 performances at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, London, which was one of the longest runs in history for any piece of musical theatre at that time. The characters and scenes of Gay's work were the stimulus for "The Threepenny Opera" of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, a modern ballad-opera so popular that it has almost completely displaced the original for the stage.

The original notion of such an opera came from Jonathan Swift, who wrote to Alexander Pope in 1716 asking "...what think you, of a Newgate pastoral among the thieves and whores there?" Their friend, Gay, decided that it would be a satire rather than a pastoral opera. For his original production in 1728, Gay intended all the songs to be sung without any accompaniment. However, before the opening night, John Rich, the theatre director, insisted on having Johann Christoph Pepusch, a composer associated with his theatre, write a formal French overture and also to orchestrate the 69 songs. It's of interest that the circle of gay blades around Pope and Swift also included the young George Frideric Handel, whose Italian operas were precisely what Gay's ballad-opera chose to mock.

A commemorative "score" of the entire opera was assembled and published quickly. As was common, this consisted of the fully-arranged overture followed by the melodies of the 69 songs, supported by only the simplest bass accompaniments. There are no indications of dance music or accompanying instrumental figures. The absence of the original performing parts has allowed arrangers free creative reign. The tradition of personalized arrangements, dating back at least as far as Thomas Arne's later 18th century arrangements, has continued to the present, running the gamut of musical styles from Romantic to Baroque.

Benjamin Britten's 'arrangement' of 1948 is so original and ample that it really constitutes a 'modern opera' in its own right. It's a brilliant synthesis of 18th C musical manners and formulae with Britten's own distinctively darkling style. Dark and gritty the music is, a quality fully rendered visible in the rags and tatters of this black-and-white filming of a production staged in 1963. Everything blends here - the costumes, the stagecraft, the cinematography - to capture the Hogarthian squalor of gin-sodden lower-class London in the early Hanoverian era. This would be a classic black-and-white film, as 'painterly' as Dickens's Christmas Carol, even without the music. But luckily, the acting cast could also sing! In fact, Polly Peachum is sung by Janet Baker, the finest British opera star of her generation. Lucy Lockit is sung very artfully by Heather Harper and MacHeath is sung by Scottish tenor Kenneth McKellar. Both Harper and McKellar were luminaries of the light-opera/operetta stage, and they deliver all the snappy snazzy mannerisms of 'musical comedy' while still singing Britten's incisively jagged disharmonies with 'classical' control. An added surprise: the sound recording is quite good, especially for a film intended for Tv broadcast. In fact, the voices are more 'present' and alive-sounding than on many more recent DVDs of staged operas.

This DVD is included in the six-production box set called the Britten-Pears Collection. Buying the whole set is a good deal more economical than buying the individual releases.