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Adaptations

As was typical practice of the time in London, a commemorative "score" of the entire opera was assembled and published quickly. As was common, this consisted of the fully-arranged overture followed by the melodies of the 69 songs, supported by only the simplest bass accompaniments. There are no indications of dance music, accompanying instrumental figures or the like, except in three instances: Lucy's "Is Then His Fate Decree'd Sir" - 1 measure of descending scale marked "Viol."; Trape's "In the Days of My Youth", in which the "fa la la chorus is written as "viol."; and the final reprieve dance, Macheath's "Thus I Stand Like A Turk", which includes two sections of 16 measures of "dance" marked "viol." (See the 1729 score, formerly published by Dover).

The absence of the original performing parts has allowed many producers and arrangers to have free creative reign. The tradition of personalized arrangements, dating back at least as far as Thomas Arne's later 18th century arrangements, continues today, running the gamut of musical styles from Romantic to Baroque: Austin, Britten, Sargent, Bonynge, Dobin and other conductors have each imbued the songs with a personal stamp highlighting different aspects of characterization. Following is a list of some of the most highly regarded 20th-century arrangements and settings of the opera.

• In 1920 baritone Frederic Austin newly arranged the music (and also sang the role of Peachum) for the long-running production at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. In 1955 this version was recorded by conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent with John Cameron as Macheath and Monica Sinclair as Lucy.
• In 1928, on the 200th anniversary of the original production, Bertolt Brecht (words) and Kurt Weill (music) created a popular new musical adaptation of the work in Germany entitled Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera). In this work, the original plot is followed fairly closely (although the time is brought forward over a hundred years) but the music is almost all new, and specially composed.
• In 1948, Benjamin Britten created an adaptation with new harmonisations and arrangements of pre-existing tunes. Additional dialogue was written by the producer, Tyrone Guthrie. Peter Pears was the first singer of Macheath.^[9]
• The opera was made into a film version in 1953, and starred Laurence Olivier as Captain Macheath.
• In 1975, Czech playwright (and future president) Václav Havel created a non-musical adaptation.
• In 1977, the Nigerian Nobel Prize-winning playwright and dramatist Wole Soyinka wrote, produced and directed Opera Wonyosi (publ. 1981), an adaptation of both John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera; most of his characters as well as some of the arias are from the two earlier plays.
• In 1981 Richard Bonynge and Douglas Gamley arranged a new edition for a recording with Joan Sutherland, Kiri Te Kanawa, James Morris and Angela Lansbury.
• The opera was adapted for BBC television in 1983. This production was directed by Jonathan Miller and starred Roger Daltrey in the role of Macheath, Stratford Johns as Peachum and Bob Hoskins as the Beggar. The "happy" ending was changed so that Macheath is hanged instead of being reprieved.
• In 1984 in the play (and later film) A Chorus of Disapproval by Alan Ayckbourn, an amateur production of The Beggar's Opera is a major plot driver and excerpts are performed.
• In 1986 in the Brazilian musical film Ópera do Malandro (American title Malandro), by Ruy Guerra (director) and Chico Buarque (writer and composer).
• In 1990, American composer Jonathan Dobin^[10][8] created a performing edition for the Ten Ten Players in New York City. The edition contains orchestrations for all 69 songs from the extant skeletal score and fleshes out the choruses, dances and intervening ritornelli in a baroque style. The New York Times wrote, "only a trace of Pepusch's score has survived ... the music was reconstructed in a convincing period style by Jonathan Dobin, the ensemble's harpsichordist".^[4]
• In 1998, the all female Japanese troupe, Takarazuka Revue, produced an adaptation titled Speakeasy.^[11] The play was Maya Miki's retirement play.
• In 2008 the Sydney Theatre Company of Australia and Out of Joint theatre company co-produced a version entitled The Convict's Opera written by Stephen Jeffreys and directed by Max Stafford-Clark. This version is set aboard a convict ship bound for New South Wales, where convicts are putting on a version of The Beggar's Opera. The lives of the convicts partly mirror their characters in The Beggars' Opera, and modern popular songs are performed throughout the piece. 'The Convict's Opera' began touring the UK in early 2009.
• Vanishing Point created a modern production of The Beggar's Opera in 2009 for The Royal Lyceum Theatre and Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, set in a near-future apocalypse world. It features music from A Band Called Quinn.^[12]