Wrought with double irony and an overall sense of mock-pastoral, English playwright John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) has its forefront of irony vividly expressed between the dynamic of the central characters Macheath and Peachum. Even the names of the characters comically resemble their occupations within the play, Peachum’s being a play on the word “peach” which means to bring one to trial, while Macheath’s meaning “son of heath” and being a play on the heaths of London, which were prime places
Evaluation of Women and Desire in The Beggar's Opera Though set in the underworld of thievery, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera codifies a set of Marxist sexual politics in which marriage stands as the great equalizer of desire and power. An often aphoristic overview of the traditional power struggle between men and women frames a world in which marriage reduces the wooer's desire but raises his power by an equal degree through ownership as a husband. This commodity fetishism of the wife spurs
John Gay's Use of Music for Satire in The Beggar's Opera John Gay=s The Beggar=s Opera is a rather complex work, despite its apparent simplicity. Critics have interpreted it variously as political satire, moral satire, even (at a stretch) Christian satire. Common to many interpretations is the assertion that the Opera is a satire directed at both the politics and the art of its day. A fairly conventional interpretation of the play and its composition shows that it is, and was intended by its
reception, the less convincing it is to take the play as just a piece of Opera. In John Gay’s 18th century theatrical story “The Beggar’s Opera”, the main characters such as Peachum, Mrs. Peachum, Macheath, Polly, Lucy, Matt of the mint and lockit are each seen respectively exhibiting ironic and cynical attitudes. Just before the beginning of the play, the Beggar and the Player tells the audience that the piece is a true opera; though it possesses no recitative which is not unnatural. The level of
and The Threepenny Opera Upon a first listening to the collaborations of Auden-Kallman/Stravinsky in The Rake's Progress and Brecht/Weill in The Threepenny Opera, the idea that there could be anything in common with the two works might seem to require a great stretch of the imagination. While the 1951 Rake's Progress is clearly neo-classical, and specifically Mozartian, the 1928 Threepenny Opera is as easily termed the precursor to the Broadway musical as it is termed "opera." Closer examination
The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay introduced a new theatrical structure in 1728. The comical play included well known balled interlaced with new melodies recognizable to most upper and lower classmen. This revision of the ballads was also a revision for operatic structure, composed of hidden satire. The play deliberately disregards all morality in order to deliver the expectations of an opera’s “happy ending.” With a compelling play, Gay definitely delivered a statement about the reflection of society
Anything Goes Musical theatre has been around for quite a while. But where exactly did it come from? The book Anything Goes, written by Ethan Mordden looks to explore just that. From operas to musical comedies, Mordden covers the basic history of musical theatre and why it’s important for the world to know. In the introduction, Mordden explains that “all its [musical theatre’s] artistry dwells in the historian’s key buzz term ‘integrated’: the union of story and score” (Mordden x). It is important
This essay will seek to explore how far literature of the time subscribes to the view in The Beggar’s Opera – ‘O London is a Fine Town’. In order to do this, the essay will examine ‘London’ by William Blake, ‘Tintern Abbey’ and ‘Composed upon Westmisnster bridge by Wordsworth and Oliver Twist by Dickens. The Beggar’s Opera was written in 1728 and is considered to be ‘the most complete statement of Gay’s attitude toward the town and its evils.’ The play begins with the introduction to the character
of the Baroque period if not of all time. His work, Messiah, is one of the most famous and beloved works of music in the world. During his career in music, Handel composed Italian cantatas, oratorios (like Messiah), Latin Church Music, and several operas. Handel moved around from country to country writing, composing, and producing music for royalty such as Queen Anne and George of Hanover. In his life, Handel mastered several instruments including the violin and the harpsichord. Georg Friederich
What keeps mankind alive? Answer the question with reference to the actions of characters in The Threepenny Opera. In The Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht, through the writing of the song “Second Threepenny Finale What Keeps Mankind Alive” in Scene Six, gives us the idea that “mankind is kept alive by bestial acts (page 55, line number 18). In my opinion, although the idea to associate human beings with beasts, or more specifically, human behaviour with “bestial acts” looks peculiar, some
Handel, George Frideric b. Feb. 23, 1685, Halle, Saxony [Germany] d. April 14, 1759, London, Eng. German (UNTIL 1715) GEORG FRIEDRICH HÄNDEL, OR HAENDEL German-born English composer of the late Baroque era, noted particularly for his operas, oratorios, and instrumental compositions. He wrote the most famous of all oratorios, the Messiah (1741), and is also known for such occasional pieces as Water Music (1717) and Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749). Life. The son of a barber-surgeon
at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, and Orlando Joseph LuPone, her father, a school administrator and English teacher at Walt Whitman High School located in Huntington, Long Island. Her grandmother, Adelina Patti, was a 19th century opera singer. Her brother, Robert LuPone, is an actor, dancer, and director who originated the role of Zach the director in A Chorus Line. LuPone is of Italian descent, and from a Catholic family. Patti was part of the first graduating class of Juilliard's
February 23, 1682 and he was a German- born British Baroque composer. He studied at the University of Halle before moving to Hamburg in 1703, where he served as a violinist in the opera orchestra. He was born the same year as Johann Sebastian Bach. He spent most of his life in London and he was well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and organ concertos. Handel was a son of a barber- surgeon and Handel’s dad wanted him to become a lawyer, but he was into music. Handel’s father didn’t want
History of Musical Theatre Outline Musical theatre is a unique adaptation to the classical western theatre utilizing music, song, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance to convey the humor, pathos, love, anger, and all the other possible feelings of the human experience ad infinitum. This is perfectly described by an E.Y. Harburg quote, a favorite of my own professor and famous producer, Stuart Ostrow, “Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.”
commonly played in gardens because they preferred outdoor spectacles (Borroff 287). So when two attempts in 1645 and 1660 were made to import Italian opera into France, the French were not too pleased. Francesco Cavalli was the composer who made the second and last attempt to bring opera to France (Holden 189). From 1660 to 1662, he presented two operas in Paris, which inevitably failed. Although France did not
plays, the actors on stage do not speak their lines they sing them! Opera is the combination of drama and music. Like drama, opera embraces the entire spectrum of theatrical elements: dialogue, acting, costumes, scenery and action, but it is the sum of all these elements, combined with music, which defines the art form called opera. Operatic dramas are usually serious, but there are several comic operas and funny scenes in tragic operas. The music is usually complicated and difficult to sing well. Only
Burlesque:The Unknown Cultural Phenomenon The term Burlesque is usually thought of as slightly naughty theatre produced and performed between the 1890s and World War II. Webster defines it as a literary or dramatic work that seeks to ridicule by means of grotesque exaggeration or comic imitation, mockery usually by caricature or theatrical entertainment of a broadly humorous often earthy character consisting of short turns, comic skits, and sometimes striptease acts. Today Burlesque has no
Measure For Measure on the Stage Near the end of his well known treatment of transgression and surveillance in Measure for Measure, Jonathan Dollimore makes an observation about the world of the play that deserves further consideration by feminist scholars: the prostitutes, the most exploited group in the society which the play represents, are absent from it. Virtually everything that happens presupposes them yet they have no voice, no presence. And those who speak for them do so as exploitatively
History of English Literature I. INTRODUCTION English literature, literature written in English since c.1450 by the inhabitants of the British Isles; it was during the 15th cent. that the English language acquired much of its modern form. II. The Tudors and the Elizabethan Age The beginning of the Tudor dynasty coincided with the first dissemination of printed matter. William Caxton's press was established in 1476, only nine years before the beginning of Henry VII's reign. Caxton's achievement