The Beggar's Opera

• Original London Production (1728)
  London, England
• New York Revival (1750)
  New York, NY
• New York Revival (1854)
  New York, NY
• Broadway Revival (1855)
  New York, NY
• Broadway Revival (1859)
  New York, NY
• London Revival (1920)
  London, England
• Broadway Revival (1920)
  New York, NY
• Broadway Revival (1928)
  New York, NY
• London Revival (1940)
  London, England
• Television Production (1952)
• Film Version (1953)
• City Center Revival (1957)
  New York, NY
• RSC Revival (1963)
  London, England
• Equity Library Theatre Revival (1964)
  New York, NY
• Television Production (1967)
• London Revival (1968)
  London, England
• Chelsea Theater Center Production (1972)
  Brooklyn, NY
• Broadway Revival (1973)
  New York, NY
• London Revival (1980)
  London, England
• Royal National Theatre Production (1982)
  London, England
• BBC Television Production (1983)
• RSC Revival (1992)
  London, England
• London Revival (2011)
  London, England

Click on the title for info on the song.

Original score

• Through All the Employments of Life
  • aka Thro' All the Employments of Life [no note]
• Tis the Woman that Seduces all Mankind
• If Any Wench Venus's Girdle Wear
• If Love the Virgin's Heart Invade
• A Maid is Like the Golden Oar
• Virgins Are Like the Fair Flower in Its Lustre
• Our Polly Is a Sad Slut
• Can Love Be Controlled by Advise?
• Oh Polly, You Might Have Toy'd and Kissed
• I, Like a Ship in Storms, was Tossed
• A Fox May Steal Your Hens, Sir
• Oh Ponder Well
• The Turtle Thus with Plaintive Crying
• Pretty Polly, Say
• My Heart Was So Free
• Were I Laid on Greenland's Coast
  • aka Over the Hills and Far Away [no note]
• Oh What Pain It is to Part
• The Miser Thus a Shilling Sees
• Fill Every Glass
• Let Us Take the Road
• If the Heart of a Man is Depressed with Cares
  • aka If the Heart of a Man [no note]
  • aka The Heart of a Man [no note]
• Youth's the Season Made for Joys
• Before the Barn-Door Crowing
  • aka How Do You Do? [no note]
• The Gamesters and Lawyers are Jugglers Alike
• At the Tree I Shall Suffer with Pleasure
• Man May Escape from Rope and Gun
  • aka Women [no note]
• Thus When a Good Housewife Sees a Rat
• How Cruel Are the Traitors
• The First Time at the Looking-Glass
• When You Censure the Age
• Is Then His Fate Decreed, Sir?
• You'll Think e'er Many Days Ensue
  • aka Twang Dang Diddle O Dee [no note]
• If You at an Office Solicit Your Due
• Thus when the Swallow, Seeking Prey
• How Happy Could I Be with Either
• I'm Bubbled
• Cease Your Funning
• Why How Now, Madam Flirt?
  • aka Madam Flirt and Saucy Jade [no note]
• No Power on Earth Can e'er Divide
• I, Like the Fox, Shall Grieve
• When Young at the Bar You First Taught Me to Score
  • aka Lucy's Lament [no note]
• My Love Is All Maddness and Folly
  • aka My Love Is All Madness and Folly [no note]
• Thus Gamesters United in Friendship are Found
  • aka Gamesters United [no note]
• The Modes of the Court So Common are Grown
• What Gudgeons Are We Men
  • aka Gudgeons [no note]
• In the Days of My Youth
• I'm Like a Skiff on the Ocean Tossed
  • aka Revenge [no note]
• When a Wife's in her Pout
• A Curse Attends that Woman's Love
• Among the Men Coquets we Find
• Come, Sweet Lass
• Hither, Dear Husband, Turn Your Eyes
  • aka Hither, Dear Husband [no note]
• Which Way Shall I Turn Me?
• When My Hero in Court Appears
  • aka Alas, Poor Polly [no note]
• When He Holds Up His Hand
• Ourselves, like the Great, to Secure a Retreat
• The Charge is Prepared
• O Cruel, Cruel, Cruel Case!
  • aka Tyburn Tree [no note]
• Of all the Friends in Time of Grief
• Since I Must Swing
• But now again my Spirits Sink
• But Valour the Stronger Grows
• If Thus--A Man Can Die
• So I Drink off this Bumper
• But can I Leave my Pretty Hussies
• Their Eyes, Their Lips, Their Busses
• Since Laws Were Made for Every Degree
• Would I Might Be Hang'd
• Thus I Stand Like the Turk
  • aka Wretch of Today May Be Happy Tomorrow, The [no note]
• When Gold Is in Hand

Additional material

• In Pimps and Politicians
• In a Humor I Was of Late
• Newgate Prison
• Prisoner's Song
• Macheath's Hanging

Added to the 1957 Revival

• Hanging is My Only Sport
• The Ways of the World
• See The Conquering Hero

Recordings listed here were done in the studio specifically to release as recordings. They do not represent cast recordings of a particular production.

• Studio Cast (1951)
  

  • Robert Carroll
  • Alan Hewitt
  • Emile Renau
  • Philip Bourneuf
  • Frank Maxwell
• Studio Cast (1963)
  

  • Elsie Morison
  • Zena Walker
  • John Cameron (i)
  • John Neville
  • Monica Sinclair
• Studio Cast (1981)
  

  • Kiri Te Kanawa
  • James Morris (i)
  • Joan Sutherland
  • Angela Lansbury
  • Alfred Marks
• Studio Cast (8888)
  

  • William McAlpine
  • Ronald Lewis
  • John Frost
  • Mary Thomas (ii)
  • Doreen Murray

Peachum, a thief catcher, deplores the fact that his daughter Polly is marrying the famous highwayman, Macheath. He arranges for Macheath to be arrested and imprisoned at the prison run by the corrupt wardon, Lockit. Macheath tries to escape by enlisted the help of Lockit’s daughter Lucy and promising to marry her. His plan is complicated when Polly comes to try and save him. Thus, Lucy and Polly end up in an inevitable rivalry. Right before Macheath is to be hanged, the Beggar (who narrates the opera) is persuaded by the player to provide a happier ending.

Music by various composers ranging from simple folk songs of the period to sophisticated art songs.