Previous posts for June 30th are found here: Esa-Pekka Salonen (2019), Lena Horne (2020), Florence Ballard (2021), and John Gay (2022)
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John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an important English poet and dramatist best remembered for the libretto of The Beggar's Opera.
Und der Haifisch
The Beggar’s Opera took satiric aim at the passionate interest of the upper classes in Italian opera. It also deals with social inequity on a broad scale, primarily through the comparison of low-class thieves and whores with their aristocratic and bourgeois "betters." – adapted from Wikipedia, s.v. “The Beggar's Opera”
Aristocratic London had
Made opera the latest fad
That entertained the noble folk
Of Britain in the High Baroque,
While those whose caste was rather lower,
A humbler breed of theater goer,
Thought the plays were lots more fun
Where ballad operas were done.
And that is why I write today
About the work of one John Gay,
Who satisfied the eager throngs
Satirically exposing wrongs,
In barbéd Beggar’s Opera songs.
The humor was a little crass,
And pilloried the ruling class.
The bourgeoisie showed up en masse,
And reveled in the racy folly
Of Peachum and MacHeath and Polly,
Who made aristocrats their target
In gamy underworld argot.
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