It’s a wise begger that knows his own opera, so many guises has it been through on stage and on record. Here it comes in the version which everybody used to know best: the one adapted for ‘a nice class of person’ on ‘a good night out’ at the theatre. Arranged by the baritone Frederic Austin (who also played Macheath) and produced by Nigel Playfair, it ran for more than three years at the Lyric, Hammersmith, opening in 1920 and priding itself on marking a return to the original version of 1728. To us now, it is no more an ‘authentic’ performance than (what shall we say?) the old Mass in B minor under Albert Coates was ‘authentic’ Bach. Its orchestration and to some extent its harmonies have less in common with, say, Handel’s Tolomeo (written in the same year as the first Beggar’s Opera) than they have with Edward German’s Merrie England. None of which means that we are not allowed to enjoy it.
At the start of this recording, enjoyment on the part of those who are willing to enjoy seems guaranteed. A lively crowd applauds the announcement (“Ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure...”), the beggar speaks his introduction in good style (ending “So, conductor, play away the overture”), and a fine stately tune gives way to a jig and curtain-up on the opera itself. The trouble now is one that plagues many recordings which have double casts of actors and singers – the voices don’t match. There is no way in which Paul Rogers’ reedy speaking voice could turn into Owen Brannigan’s ripe basso. In this instance it is a matter of ‘How happy could I be with either’, but it is not always so: Constance Shacklock is no Mrs Peachum or Mrs Trapes (she sings both), and John Cameron is no Macheath. Both come straight out of oratorio, and excellently as they sing they are not remotely in character. Nor are some of the speaking voices: Polly and Lucy play their scenes together as though they were in The Importance of Being Earnest.
Still, the spirit of enjoyment is sufficiently robust not to wilt over details of this sort, and there remain the good tunes, the good voices, the wit, the high professionalism of the actors and of Sir Malcolm’s orchestra – as well as this new-fangled thing called ‘stereo’, for that is what it was when the recording was made, in stereo, in 1955. It came out in mono, and the reissue in 1963 restored the stereo original, which has Peachum walking around the room while talking, and the bells ting-a-linging stage-left. It was, I am told, the first opera EMI recorded in stereo, and so has its place in history. Could we now, I wonder, give a second chance to the Argo recording which appeared in the same month (conducted by Richard Austin, 11/55) and, if memory serves, was more convincing in performance, if less opulent in sound?'