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''The Threepenny Opera''〔The word "threepenny" refers to a coin in Britain's pre-decimal currency; the work's title in its English-language translation reflects the common pronunciation of that coin ("THREP-penny"). The coin was discontinued in 1971 after the decimalization of sterling.〕 (') is a "play with music", translated by German dramatist Elisabeth Hauptmann from John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, ''The Beggar's Opera'',〔In an acknowledgement of the earlier work, Weill sets his opening number, ''Morgenchoral des Peachum'', to the music used by composer Pepusch in Gay's original.〕 with music by Kurt Weill, and insertion ballads by François Villon and Rudyard Kipling as adapted by Bertolt Brecht. The work offers a Socialist critique of the capitalist world. It opened on 31 August 1928 at Berlin's Theater am Schiffbauerdamm. By 1933, when Weill and Brecht were forced to leave Germany by Hitler's ',〔Hauptmann was not able to leave Germany until 1936.〕 the play had been translated into 18 languages and performed more than 10,000 times on European stages.〔 Summer 2009〕 Songs from ''The Threepenny Opera'' have been widely covered and become standards, most notably "" ("The Ballad of Mack the Knife") and "" ("Pirate Jenny"). ==Overview== Set in Victorian London, the play focuses on Macheath, an amoral, antiheroic criminal. Macheath ("Mackie," or "Mack the Knife") marries Polly Peachum. This displeases her father, who controls the beggars of London, and he endeavours to have Macheath hanged. His attempts are hindered by the fact that the Chief of Police, Tiger Brown, is Macheath's old army comrade. Still, Peachum exerts his influence and eventually gets Macheath arrested and sentenced to hang. Macheath escapes this fate via a ''deus ex machina'' moments before the execution when, in an unrestrained parody of a happy ending, a messenger from the Queen arrives to pardon Macheath and grant him the title of Baron. ''The Threepenny Opera'' is a work of epic theatre. It challenges conventional notions of property as well as those of theatre. ''The Threepenny Opera'' is also an early example of the modern musical comedy genre. Its score is deeply influenced by jazz. The orchestration involves a small ensemble with a good deal of doubling-up on instruments (in the original performances, for example, some 7 players covered a total of 23 instrumental parts, though modern performances typically use a few more players).〔("''Threepenny Opera'': The Music" )〕 Its opening and closing lament, "The Ballad of Mackie Messer", was written just before the Berlin premiere, when actor Harald Paulsen (Macheath) threatened to quit if his character did not receive an introduction; this creative emergency resulted in what would become the work's most popular song, later translated into English by Marc Blitzstein as "Mack the Knife" and now a jazz standard that Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Michael Bublé, Robbie Williams, Ray Quinn, and countless others have all covered. Another well-known song, recorded by Nina Simone, Judy Collins, and Marc Almond, is "Pirate Jenny", which was also recorded by Steeleye Span under the alternative title "The Black Freighter". The Pet Shop Boys,〔Pet Shop Boys: ''Alternative'', disc 2, track 8〕 Tom Waits, and William S. Burroughs have recorded "The Second Threepenny Finale" under the title "What Keeps Mankind Alive?". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Threepenny Opera」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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