Product Description

Created especially for television, this version of John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera" captures the quality and satiric edge of the Hogarth engravings which influenced Gay's original version. The characters of this highly-spirited comedy of London's lowlife thrive on thieving, lechery and deceit. Starring Bob Hoskins and Roger Daltrey of The Who, "The Beggar's Opera" is one of the great seminal works of British musical theatre and has achieved staggering success continuously since its first performance in 1728.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #68900 in DVD
• Released on: 2000-10-31
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Classical, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 134 minutes

Amazon.com
John Gay's The Beggar's Opera created a theatrical revolution in London in 1728. It lampooned the conventions of Italian opera seria--then the reigning form of musical theatre in London--by putting the genre's aristocratic attitudes and high-flown sentiments into the dialogue of thieves, beggars, cutthroats, and prostitutes and by making it painfully clear that petty greed, vanity, and jealousies, not the noble sentiments uttered by operatic heroes, were what motivated its plot. For the elaborately structured da capo arias and rhetorical recitatives of opera seria, it substituted spoken dialogue and popular tunes of the time with new, satirical lyrics. It was sensationally popular because it was in touch with the contemporary environment.

Today, nearly three centuries later, it requires some historical background for complete enjoyment. Only a few of the tunes are still familiar, and for American audiences, subtitles might occasionally be useful. Some of the characters, representing small-time underworld operators, have Cockney accents almost as impenetrable as the German, Italian, or Russian heard in other opera videos. But the performance is superbly styled and it grows more enjoyable with repeated hearings. The cast includes some highly skilled stars of British TV who slip easily into a baroque equivalent of their sitcom experience. For Americans, the best-known cast member is Roger Daltrey (of the rock group the Who), perhaps better-known for Tommy than for The Beggar's Opera. --Joe McLellan

Customer Reviews

Gritty Beggar's Opera On the Whole a Success
To those reviewers who long for the Olivier version and who think of The Beggar's Opera through the charming lens of the 1920s revival: Gay would be spinning in his grave if he ever heard someone use the word "romantic" in conjunction with his acid little play. I know that the play took on a life of its own, and was revived virtually every season throughout the 18th century, but let's not forget that he was out to write a scathing satire of the political and social corruptions of his day: the very idea of having a beggar write an "opera" for the marriage celebration of two catch-singers seemed so outrageous that the audience wasn't sure whether or not to boo it offstage until the middle of the first act. Audiences in 1728 loved it because it ridiculed rich and powerful political figures while it skewered the pretensions of Italian opera and opera-singers; audiences afterwards got charmed by the songs and by the mythology of its characters, as the play lost its immediate topical sting.

Jonathan Miller's production attempts to restore something of the grittiness of the original play, both by having Roger Daltrey as Macheath and by recreating the squalor of Peachum's lock and of Newgate prison (compare Miller's set of Newgate with Hogarth's famous painting of Act III and you'll see what I mean). Daltrey is both good and not good as Macheath: Macheath does have something of the rock-star about him--and makes Polly and Lucy's attraction to him plausible--and Daltrey's sneer captures the cynicism that underlines Macheath's character. Moreover, Daltrey rises to the occasion perfectly when he sings the "Greensleeves" rewrite "Since Laws were made for ev'ry Degree", thundering out his bitterness with a power that could only come from someone more used to belting out "Young Man's Blues" than Handel. I'm a little surprised that one reviewer would refer to him as a "boy"--Daltrey was 39 when this production was made in 1983. However, he sometimes seems a little out of place with more classically trained singers, such as Carol Hall (a staple of John Eliot Gardiner's Montiverdi Choir). He may also strike some as too "modern" for what is presented here as a period-piece, tho' personally I found Daltrey made the piece more accessible.


As for the rest of the cast: Peachum is a hoot, and Mrs. Peachum is delightfully grubby. Lockit gets a bit annoying after a while, but he really is a one-dimensional character. The teo female leads are equally matched, as Gay's beggar says they should be: Polly tries to be as starched and respectable as Lucy tries to enjoy her low status. Kudos also to the Broadside Band for their excellent period-instrument rendering of the music--again, a vast improvement over more "romantic" conceptions of the opera.

Two criticisms to finish off: why Miller changed the ending is beyond me,and is the biggest misstep in an otherwise fine production. The sound, as others have noted, is terrible: a real hindrance for those trying to hear the music. Given that this was recorded for TV in 1983, some of the technical problems are excusable--but a digitally remastered version of the soundtrack would be most welcome.

Not a perfect rendering of the Beggar's Opera, but one appreciably closer to an eighteenth-century sensibility than previous versions.

A must if you teach the Beggar's Opera!

If you teach the Beggar's Opera, especially at the college level, you can't do better than this lively, funny version of the original play. The ending is somewhat changed, but only slightly (you'll see). Bob Hoskins has a cute cameo, Peachum and Lockit are a delight, and Roger Daltrey is dashing and perfect as the ladykiller highwayman, Macheath. My only frustration is that the English accents are so thick (the Cockney is intense!) that sometimes the film seems to need subtitles. But it's a magnificent version, and my college students consistently love it.

Excellent direction and performances
Although I understand the complaints about the dialogue being unintelligible, I actually thought the songs were very easy to understand. Both the singing and the general presentation of the music were excellent--John Eliot Gardner does a great job of music direction. I also agree that this is an excellent version to use in teaching; it's lively, thoughtful, virtually uncut, and offers some interesting interpretations. (Jonathan Miller diverges from the text at the end, but it is a thought-provoking divergence.) It's not a sugar-candy version of the Opera, but since the threat of death by hanging is a central element of the text, I don't see the gritty aspects of this performance as a problem.