Handel, Walpole, and Gay: The Aims of The Beggar's Opera
1974; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/3031597
ISSN1086-315X
Autores Tópico(s)Historical Influence and Diplomacy
ResumoGAY'S LETTER to Swift, written some two weeks after The Beggar's Opera opened on 29 January 1728,2 might have seemed to some an extraordinary boast. The expectation that his play would equal its already unprecedented run was, however, well founded. At a time when a dozen consecutive performances of a play were all but unheard of, The Beggar's Opera was produced without interruption fewer than sixty-two times.3 After more than a week's run (the usual interval signaling a play's success) the Daily Journal reported that at Lincoln's Inn Fields no one third Part of the Company that crowd thither to see [the play], can get Admittance.4 Even after the close of the 1727-28 season The Beggar's Opera was acted an additional fifteen times at the Haymarket Theatre by a semiprofessional company.5 Indeed, it was not until the 1732-33 season that audiences were drawn to The Beggar's Opera with promises that one of the afterpiece's actresses would dress in boy's clothing or that Signora Violante will perform her surprising Entertainments on the Rope [6 September 1732]. 6
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