The Beggar's Opera was the biggest hit of the eighteenth century, surpassing all other operatic and entertainment productions in popularity and in box office receipts. It brought wealth to the producer and author and was responsible for the birth of the first musical comedy stars. These included Lavinia Fenton, who later married a duke, and the famous Kitty Clive, grand dame of comedy of the London stage. The Beggar's Opera started a rage for ballad operas of all kinds, and even contributed to the emergence of singspiel in Germany. When revived in the twentieth century, The Beggar's Opera also drew an extensive audience and inspired such works as Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera.

It was revolutionary in its conception. Although other plays had included ballad songs, this one made use of 69 tunes, most of them preexisting and known to the audience by other titles and with other words. Most of these were originally contained in Thomas D'Urfey's collection called Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy. This included tunes originating in England, France, and Italy; some were composed by Purcell, others by Eccles, and they were sung with words about events with which everyone in England was familiar. Of the tunes that don't come from D'Urfey's Pills, there are melodies by Handel, Bononcini, Frescobaldi, Geminiani, and more. The sprightly overture and bass line accompaniments for the songs were written by Dr. Pepusch, but it is said that Gay himself picked out the song tunes and interpolated them into his riotously funny satire on British life.

The main characters in his play come from Newgate; they are all thieves, whores, highwaymen, and vagabonds, many inspired by famous criminals of the time. In addition to showing the extent of crime and poverty in London at the time, Gay uses his characters to satirize the upper echelons of British society, especially the licentious and thieving prime minister Sir Robert Walpole. A poor beggar, the supposed author of the work, introduces the play.

Gay's wit is sharp, and there are few stones left unturned. He heavily satirizes the ever popular Italian opera seria conventions and helped bring about the decline of Italian opera in London as a result. Gay invents a reprieve for Macheath, in imitation of the contrived happy endings of the Italian genre. He makes sure to include a series of simile arias of the Italian type which compare the singer to a flower, bee, ship, etc. As The Beggar's Opera opens, Gay's Beggar assures the audience that Polly and Lucy, his two leading ladies, have exactly the same amount of music and the same number of lines, a reference to the feud between Faustian and Cozen, two prima donnas at the Royal Academy of Music at the time. Lawyers are given their fair share of barbs, and injustice is sung of by the major criminals in the play. Murder is discussed as a business expediency, and the plight of women is also taken up.

© Rita Laurance, Rovi