Ballad opera
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
stage entertainment originating in the 18th century and continuing to develop in the following century and later. There are many types of ballad opera. This article describes the principal sub-genres.
The earliest ballad operas
Ballad opera has been called an "eighteenth-century protest against the Italian conquest of the London operatic scene" It consists of racy and often satiricalSatire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
spoken (English) dialogue, interspersed with songs that are deliberately kept very short (mostly a single short stanza and refrain) to minimize disruptions to the flow of the story, which involves lower class, often criminal, characters, and typically shows a suspension (or inversion) of the high moral values of the Italian opera of the period.
It is generally accepted that the first ballad opera, and the one that was to prove the most successful, was The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera
The Beggar's Opera is a ballad opera in three acts written in 1728 by John Gay with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today...
of 1728. It had a libretto by John Gay
John Gay
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera , set to music by Johann Christoph Pepusch...
and music arranged by John Christopher Pepusch, both of whom probably experienced vaudeville theatre in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and may have been motivated to reproduce it in an English form. They were also probably influenced by the burlesques and musical plays of Thomas D'Urfey
Thomas d'Urfey
Thomas D'Urfey was an English writer and wit. He composed plays, songs, and poetry, in addition to writing jokes. He was an important innovator and contributor in the evolution of the Ballad opera....
(1653–1723) who had a reputation for fitting new words to existing songs
Parody music
Parody music, or musical parody, involves changing or recycling existing musical ideas or lyrics — or copying the peculiar style of a composer or artist, or even a general style of music. Although the result is often funny, and this is the usual intent — the term "parody" in musical terms also...
; a popular anthology of these settings
Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy
Wit and Mirth: Or Pills to Purge Melancholy is the title of a large collection of songs by Thomas d'Urfey, published between 1698 and 1720, which in its final, six-volume edition held over 1,000 songs and poems. The collection started as a single book compiled and published by Henry Playford who...
was published in 1700 and frequently re-issued. A number of the tunes from this anthology were recycled in The Beggar's Opera.
Gay produced further works in this style, including a sequel to The Beggar's Opera, Polly. Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding
Henry Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess, and as the author of the novel Tom Jones....
, Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
, Arne, Dibdin, Arnold, Shield, Jackson of Exeter, Hook and many others produced ballad operas that enjoyed great popularity. By the middle of the century, however, the genre was already in decline.
Although they featured the lower reaches of society, the audiences for these works were typically the London bourgeois. As a reaction to serious opera (at this time almost invariably sung in Italian), the music, for these audiences, was as satirical in its way as the words of the play. The plays themselves contained references to contemporary politics — in The Beggar's Opera the character Peachum was a lampoon of Sir Robert Walpole. This satirical element meant that many of them risked censorship and banning — as was the case with Gay's successor to The Beggar's Opera, Polly.
The tunes of the original ballad operas were almost all pre-existing (somewhat in the manner of a modern "jukebox musical
Jukebox musical
A jukebox musical is a stage or film musical that uses previously released popular songs as its musical score. Usually the songs have in common a connection with a particular popular musician or group — either because they were written by, or for, the artists in question, or were at least...
"): however they were taken from a wide variety of contemporary sources, including folk melodies
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, popular airs by classical composers (such as Purcell
Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
) and even children's nursery rhymes. A significant source from which the music was drawn was the fund of popular airs to which 18th century London broadside ballad
Broadside (music)
A broadside is a single sheet of cheap paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations...
s are set. It is from this connection that the term "ballad opera" is drawn. This ragbag of "pre-loved" music
Parody music
Parody music, or musical parody, involves changing or recycling existing musical ideas or lyrics — or copying the peculiar style of a composer or artist, or even a general style of music. Although the result is often funny, and this is the usual intent — the term "parody" in musical terms also...
is a good test for distinguishing between the original type of ballad opera and its later forms.
The Disappointment
The Disappointment
The Disappointment, or The Force of Credulity is a ballad opera in two acts with a prologue and epilogue, to a text by an unknown author writing under the pseudonym "Andrew Barton". William Peterson, in 1766, claimed that the opera was written by a "son of Philadelphia College," leading to...
(1762) represents an early American attempt at such a ballad opera.
The Singspiel connection
In 1736 the PrussiaPrussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
n ambassador in England commissioned an arrangement in German of a popular ballad opera, The Devil to Pay, by Charles Coffey
Charles Coffey
Charles Coffey was an Irish playwright and composer.His best known opera is probably The Beggar’s Wedding , which capitalizes on the success of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera...
. This was successfully performed in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
, Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
and elsewhere in Germany in the 1740s. A new version was produced by C. F. Weisse and Johann Adam Hiller in 1766. The success of this version was the first of many by these collaborators, who have been called (according to Grove
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
) "the fathers of the German Singspiel". (The storyline of The Devil to Pay was also adapted for Gluck for his 1759 French opera Le diable à quatre).
Pastoral Ballad Opera
A later development, also often referred to as ballad opera, was a more "pastoral" form. In subject matter, especially, these "ballad operas" were antithetical to the more satirical variety. In place of the rag-bag of pre-existing music found in (for example) The Beggar's Opera, the scores of these works consisted in the main of original music, although they not infrequently quoted folk melodies, or imitated them. Isaac BickerstaffeIsaac Bickerstaffe
Isaac Bickerstaffe or Bickerstaff was an Irish playwright and Librettist.-Early life:Isaac John Bickerstaff was born in Dublin, on 26 September 1733, where his father John Bickerstaff held a government position overseeing the construction and management of sports fields including bowls and tennis...
's Love in a Village (1763) and Shield’s
William Shield
William Shield was an English composer, violinist and violist who was born in Swalwell near Gateshead, the son of William Shield and his wife, Mary, née Cash.-Life and musical career:...
Rosina (1781) are typical examples. Interestingly, many of these works were introduced as after-pieces to performances of Italian operas.
Later in the century broader comedies such as Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
's The Duenna and the innumerable works of Charles Dibdin
Charles Dibdin
Charles Dibdin was a British musician, dramatist, novelist, actor and songwriter. The son of a parish clerk, he was born in Southampton on or before 4 March 1745, and was the youngest of a family of 18....
moved the balance back towards the original style, but there was little remaining of the impetus of the satirical ballad opera.
The 19th Century
English nineteenth century opera is very heavily drawn from the "pastoral" form of the ballad opera, and traces even of the satiric kind can be found in the work of "serious" practitioners such as John BarnettJohn Barnett
John Barnett was an English composer and writer on music.-Life:Barnett was the eldest son of a Prussian Jew named Bernhard Beer, who changed his surname on settling in England as a jeweller. According to some he was a cousin of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer...
. Much of the satiric spirit (albeit in a greatly refined form) of the original ballad opera can be found in Gilbert's contribution to the Savoy operas of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
, and the more pastoral form of ballad opera is imitated, or at least emulated, in one of Gilbert and Sullivan's early works, The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
.
The 20th Century
The Threepenny OperaThe Threepenny Opera
The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...
of Kurt Weill
Kurt Weill
Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
and Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
(1928) is a reworking of The Beggar's Opera, setting a similar story with the same characters, and containing much of the same satirical bite. On the other hand, it uses just one tune from the original – all the other music being specially composed, and thus omits one of the most distinctive features of the original ballad opera.
In a completely different vein, Hugh the Drover
Hugh the Drover
Hugh the Drover is an opera in two acts by Ralph Vaughan Williams to an original English libretto by Harold Child. According to Michael Kennedy, the composer took first inspiration for the opera from this question to Bruce Richmond, editor of The Times Literary Supplement, around 1909–1910:"I...
, an opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
in two acts by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
first staged in 1924, is also sometimes referred to as a "ballad opera". It is plainly much closer to Shield's
William Shield
William Shield was an English composer, violinist and violist who was born in Swalwell near Gateshead, the son of William Shield and his wife, Mary, née Cash.-Life and musical career:...
Rosina than to The Beggar's Opera.
In the twentieth century folk singers have produced musical plays with folk or folk-like songs called "ballad operas". Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
, Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
, Burl Ives
Burl Ives
Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....
, and others recorded The Martins and the Coys in 1944, and Peter Bellamy
Peter Bellamy
Peter Franklyn Bellamy was an English folk singer. He was a founding member of The Young Tradition but also had a long solo career, recording numerous albums and touring folk clubs and concert halls...
and others recorded The Transports in 1977. The first of these is in some ways connected to the "pastoral" form of the ballad opera, and the latter to the satiric Beggar's Opera type, but in all they represent yet further reinterpretations of the term.
Ironically, it is in the musicals
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
of Kander & Ebb —especially Chicago
Chicago (musical)
Chicago is a musical set in Prohibition-era Chicago. The music is by John Kander with lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal"...
and Cabaret
Cabaret (musical)
Cabaret is a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions....
— that the kind of satire embodied in The Beggar's Opera and its immediate successors is probably best preserved, although here, as in Weill's version, the music is specially composed, unlike the first ballad operas of the 18th century.