Features:

This score presents a version of The Beggar's Opera that was made in 1948 for performance by the English Opera Group. The original edition of John Gay's ballad opera included sixty-nine songs, or bits of songs, and much more dialogue than is printed here. Only three of his songs are omitted from this version.

The production of this new version sprang from a hint given in the original Prologue to the play, which states that the opera had previously been performed in the begger's 'great room at Saint Giles', to celebrates the marriage of two ballad-singers. Accordingly the producer and the composer planned to stages the opera in this 'great room', which they imagined as a laundry frequented by beggars, who worked there in return for food and warmth.

A permanent setting of this laundry was the scene of the performance: all changes of scene were made by the swift adjustment of screens and furniture in full view of the audience. This was done by the beggars for whose entertainment the opera was being given, and who took part in the action as stage-audience, as chorus and as small part performers.

This way of presenting the opera demanded the rewriting of some parts of the text, and the insertion of a few extra speeches. The additional dialogue was written by the producer, Tyrone Guthrie, and is distinguished from the priginal text in this edition by being printed in italics.

Table of Contents:

Catalog:	48009753
Publisher:	Hal Leonard
Composer:	John Gay
Artist:
Arranger:	Benjamin Britten
Voicing:	Voice
Level:
Pages:	104