
A huge success at its first performance in 1728 John Gay's The Beggar's Opera satirized the conventions of Italian opera, using popular tunes to tell the story of rogues and criminals. With his distinctive musical arrangements at its heart, Britten's 1948 adaptation was a significant revision, amounting to a new twentieth-century opera. The BBC film, originally broadcast in 1963, feature a superb cast of English singers..

as The Beggar

as The Manager of the Company/Mat of the Mint

as The Stage Manager/Slippery Sam

as Peachum

as Filch/Wat Dreary

as Mrs. Peachum

as Polly Peachum

as Captain Macheath

as Lockit

as Lucy Lockit

as Mrs. Trapes

as Jenny Diver

as Ben Budge

as Tom Tipple

as Crook-finger'd Jack

as Harry Paddington

as Mrs. Coaxer

as Dolly Trull

as Mrs. Vixen

as Betty Doxy

as Mrs Slammekin

as Suky Tawdry

as Molly Brazen