The Washington Opera is at a crossroads, and this week as it concludes one season and announces the next, the fact is particularly evident. The diverging paths from which it must choose are symbolized by the two theaters where it performs. One is...

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In the following excerpt, Fenwick Gaye focuses on the years 1727 and 1728, when Gay wrote and then premiered The Beggar's Opera. She pays particular attention to Gay's influential relationships with fellow Scriblerians Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, and to Gay's difficult relationship with the English court and government, including Prime Minister Robert Walpole.

In the following essay, Erskine-Hill considers the whole of Gay's dramatic corpus to illuminate Gay's experimentalism and the development of his most famous work, The Beggar's Opera. Erskine-Hill focuses on Gay's tendency to mix and subvert familiar generic forms to create entirely new types of theatre.

In the following excerpts, Winton examines the history of the writing and reception of The Beggar's Opera, focusing on Gay's close relationships with Pope and Swift. Winton suggests that Gay's innovative use of both classical works and English popular ballads created a uniquely English genre from the then-popular Italian opera.