The Beggar’s Opera is embedded within a frame story in which a player—or actor—and a beggar discuss the (fictional) circumstances in which the play was written and produced. This framing device provides commentary on the nature of the play and, more specifically, its satirical intentions. In the opening lines of the work, the Beggar apologizes to the audience for the various ways in which his opera departs from convention:
I hope I may be forgiven, that I have not made my Opera throughout unnatural, like those in vogue; for I have no Recitative: Excepting this, as I have consented to have neither Prologue nor Epilogue, it must be allow’d an Opera in all its forms. The Piece indeed hath been heretofore frequently represented by ourselves in our great Room at St. Giles’s, so that I cannot too often acknowledge your Charity in bringing it now on the Stage.
He insists that his work is an opera despite lacking many conventional elements of an opera, including recitative (sung dialogue), a prologue, and an epilogue. He also notes that the work has already been performed many times in “our great Room at St. Giles’s,” a shelter for the poor in a low-class area of London. This framing device returns at the end of the text, as the Beggar and the Player argue about how the play should end:
PLAYER. But, honest Friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed.
BEGGAR. Most certainly, Sir.—To make the Piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical Justice.—Macheath is to be hang’d; and for the other Personages of the Drama, the Audience must have suppos’d they were all either hang’d or transported.
The Player, conscious of how the audience will respond to the performance, demands that the Beggar change the ending so that Macheath escapes justice and is freed. The Beggar notes that this “happy” ending would contradict his intention to impart a moral lesson, but he ultimately relents and accepts the Player’s suggestion. This frame story underscores the satirical nature of the work, which prioritizes what is amusing over what is morally correct.
The Beggar’s Opera is embedded within a frame story in which a player—or actor—and a beggar discuss the (fictional) circumstances in which the play was written and produced. This framing device provides commentary on the nature of the play and, more specifically, its satirical intentions. In the opening lines of the work, the Beggar apologizes to the audience for the various ways in which his opera departs from convention:
I hope I may be forgiven, that I have not made my Opera throughout unnatural, like those in vogue; for I have no Recitative: Excepting this, as I have consented to have neither Prologue nor Epilogue, it must be allow’d an Opera in all its forms. The Piece indeed hath been heretofore frequently represented by ourselves in our great Room at St. Giles’s, so that I cannot too often acknowledge your Charity in bringing it now on the Stage.
He insists that his work is an opera despite lacking many conventional elements of an opera, including recitative (sung dialogue), a prologue, and an epilogue. He also notes that the work has already been performed many times in “our great Room at St. Giles’s,” a shelter for the poor in a low-class area of London. This framing device returns at the end of the text, as the Beggar and the Player argue about how the play should end:
PLAYER. But, honest Friend, I hope you don’t intend that Macheath shall be really executed.
BEGGAR. Most certainly, Sir.—To make the Piece perfect, I was for doing strict poetical Justice.—Macheath is to be hang’d; and for the other Personages of the Drama, the Audience must have suppos’d they were all either hang’d or transported.
The Player, conscious of how the audience will respond to the performance, demands that the Beggar change the ending so that Macheath escapes justice and is freed. The Beggar notes that this “happy” ending would contradict his intention to impart a moral lesson, but he ultimately relents and accepts the Player’s suggestion. This frame story underscores the satirical nature of the work, which prioritizes what is amusing over what is morally correct.
