The Beggar's Opera

The Beggar's Opera (1991)

Comedy

Unlike any other opera, the so-called Beggar's Opera is not just one composition, but a lineage of adapted compositions, beginning with the original hugely successful 1728 political satire written by Englishman John Gay. Composers and writers have penned variations on it ever since. The most famous of these was A Threepenny Opera by Bertholt Brecht and Kurt Weill. Some things these compositions share in common is their setting among the poor and criminal classes, and the roguish character Macheath. This production is based on an adaptation of Gay's original by Vaclav Havel the freedom-fighter, writer and philosopher who became the first (and only) president of the united post-communist country of Czechoslovakia, and it retains many traces of its theatrical origins. Film reviewers were not too tolerant of what they called "slavish adherence" to the noted Czech writer's stage production, but theater, philosophy and history buffs may feel otherwise.

Director: Jiří Menzel
Writers: Václav Havel, Jiří Menzel.

Casts

	Josef Abrhám as Macheath
	Marián Labuda as Peachum
	Nina Divíšková as Elizabeth Peachum
	Libuše Šafránková as Jenny
	Rudolf Hrušínský as Lockit
	Veronika Freimanová as Lucy
	Barbora Leichnerová as Polly
	Jiří Zahajský as Harry Filch
	Oldřich Vízner as Jim
	Ondřej Vetchý as Jack
	Jeremy Irons as Prisoner
	Jana Břežková as Mary Lockit
	Kateřina Frýbová as Diana
	Jana Švandová as
	Mahulena Bočanová as Vicky
	Naďa Kotršová as Ingrid
	Miloslav Štibich as
	Rudolf Hrušínský as Policeman
	Jiří Lír as
	Pavel Zedníček as
	Oldřich Vlach as
	Petr Brukner as
	Ljuba Krbová as
	Jitka Asterová as
	Blanka Lormanová as
	Alice Šnirychová-Dvořáková as
	Eugen Jegorov as
	Martin Faltýn as
	Pavel Zvarič as
	Filip Minařík as
	Jan Morávek as
	Martin Morávek as
	Václav Kotva as
	Steva Maršálek as

Crew