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9 unusual facts about The Beggar’s Opera


Charles Coffey

His best known opera is probably The Beggar’s Wedding (1729), which capitalizes on the success of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera (1728).

Claud Lovat Fraser

In 1919 he produced the designs for Nigel Playfair's (1874–1934) ground-breaking production of As You Like It in Stratford upon Avon, then in 1920 for Playfair's highly successful London revival of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.

Deborah Norton

She worked in Britain until she toured America with The Beggar's Opera, staying on in Greenwich Village after the tour had finished.

Hamilton Lee

At various points in the 1980s, Lee drummed for various theatre projects by the comedy/drama/"horror-panto" troupe Count of Three in both London and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, including versions of The Beggar's Opera, Titus Andronicus and Dr Calamari's Music Hall of the Macabre.

Isaac Darkin

While in prison awaiting his fate, he was reported to have drunk freely and entertained himself (and others) by reading from The Beggar's Opera, identifying with the character of Macheath.

Johann Christoph Pepusch

Although Pepusch is now best known for his arrangement of the music for The Beggar's Opera (1728) -- to the libretto of John Gay—he composed many other works including stage and church music as well as concertos and continuo sonatas.

Jury of matrons

John Gay’s The Beggar's Opera alludes to the idea that women awaiting trial or temporarily reprieved from hanging by virtue of an inaccurate diagnosis of pregnancy would sometimes attempt to conceive by their jailers in hopes of pardon.

Lucerna Music Bar

Previously banned plays, movies, books and records, including Havel's adaptation of The Beggar's Opera, became available.

William Duncombe

Duncombe published in both the Whitehall Evening Post and the London Journal. Alexander Pope satirized the London Journal by name in The Dunciad, and Duncombe had written a letter to it criticizing John Gay's The Beggar's Opera for its vitiating effects on public morals.


530 Turandot

530 Turandot is a minor planet orbiting the Sun that was discovered by German astronomer Max Wolf on April 11, 1904 and named for the title character in Puccini's opera.

A-Hunting We Will Go

It was written by Arne for the 1777 production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera at Covent Garden.

Arthur Q. Bryan

The DVD specials for some cartoons such as What's Opera, Doc?, in Looney Tunes Golden Collection, includes bits of conversation between Bryan and Mel Blanc, affording a rare opportunity to hear them working together, and to hear Bryan's natural voice.

Beggar's Holiday

An updated version of The Beggar's Opera by John Gay, it focuses on a corrupt world inhabited by rakish mobsters and their double crossing gangs, raffish madams and their dissolute whores, panhandlers and street people as they conduct their dirty business, ply their trade, and struggle to survive in brothels, shanty towns, and prisons.

Douglas House, Petersham

After his death in 1725, Carlton's nephew, Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry inherited the house and, with his wife, Catherine "Kitty" Hyde, the couple played host to literary and artistic figures of the time including John Gay who is reputed to have written and rehearsed the Beggar's Opera in 1728 whilst at the riverside summerhouse in the grounds.

Duck Amuck

This was the second of three animated shorts by Jones to receive this honor (the others are 1957's What's Opera, Doc? and 1955's One Froggy Evening).

Esther Young

She appeared in several Lampe operas and played Lucy in John Gay's The Beggar’s Opera for many years.

Frederic Austin

The restoration of the musical score for The Beggar's Opera by John Gay and Dr Pepusch (originally produced in 1728) was undertaken by Frederic Austin and completed in 1920 in time for the production by Nigel Playfair, with artistic designs by Claud Lovat Fraser, which opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith on 6 June 1920 and ran for a record number of 1,463 performances until 23 December 1923.

John Frederick Lampe

His works for the stage include the mock operas Pyramus and Thisbe (1745) and The Dragon of Wantley (1734), which ran for 69 nights, a record for the time, surpassing The Beggar's Opera.

The Beggar's Benison

The full title of the club is "The Most Ancient and Most Puissant Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland, Anstruther", where the word 'Merryland' is a euphemism for the female body - used often in contemporary erotic literature.

Thomas German Reed

In addition to comic classics like The Beggar's Opera, the Reeds usually presented new works by English writers such as F. C. Burnand, W.S. Gilbert, William Brough and Gilbert à Beckett.


see also

Harry Theyard

He began his career with the New Orleans Opera Association in secondary parts, including appearances in Salome (1949), Le nozze di Figaro (1956), Il trovatore (opposite Herva Nelli, 1958) and The Beggar's Opera (directed by Lillian Gish, 1958).