John Gay, "The Beggar's Opera", realized by Benjamin Britten

Fourteen years after the last post in the series, finally, it's the ninth in a series of albums that I haven't heard in over twenty years, since the start of this blog in January 2020.  

I had read the text of the play but I knew that the phenomenon that was "The Beggar's Opera" is somewhat lost without the music to accompany the words, so I bought these discs to experience it in full.  I had the slightest clue about who Britten was, his importance to post-WWII British music, or his reputation as an opera composer.  I bought the only version of the piece that I could find.  

To tell the truth, I hadn't cared much for the play.  Compared to the Restoration comedies that I loved from the previous generation of British writers, the text is lacking in wit, the characters are simplistic, the plot is drearily straightforward and bereft of true twists and surprises, with a clumsy deus ex machina ending that confuses and frustrates rather than providing a cause for celebration. If I had heard a musical arrangement that was close in spirit to the light, baroque airs that the original text stipulates, perhaps I could have gained more of an appreciation for the work.  Britten's realization is none of those things.  I was looking to flip my opinion of "The Beggar's Opera", and Britten was just about the worst possible composer to help me along.  

The music is characteristically Britten.  The orchestra is rather small (just fourteen players credited) but rich with unusual sonorities, and upfront and jarring percussion.  The overall effect is one of a much larger ensemble, as such, the musical arrangements take on more of a starring role than in the more "literal" adaptations.  A key element of "The Beggar's Opera" was its satirical interpretation of early 18th century Italian opera.  With larger than life divas supplanted by lowly thieves and miscreants, and the high drama of opera composition replaced by innocent English ballads that Gay's audience would have been completely familiar with, the irony in the presentation would have been impossible to ignore.   Britten's re-interpretation removes those chaste, innocent qualities from the music and presents something far more sinister.  One cannot forget for a moment that these are low-lifes singing along to a soundtrack meant for thieves.   Many musical phrases have uncomfortable resolutions, and unflinchingly displeasing conclusions.  

The pacing of the opera is still not much to my taste.  The vacillation between text and brief musical airs is dizzying.  What passes for action in the text is given little room to develop or breath through such short snippets of dialogue, and the same can be said for the short ballad airs (fifty five of them in all).  But Britten is a composer whose work rewards repeat listens, the music is dense and fascinating.