Music: Old Beggar in New Clothes

For the ticketseller at London's Sadler's Wells Theater, the words themselves made music: "Sorry, sir, no seats—we're a success." For a fortnight, Londoners had been flocking to hear the new opera of lanky Benjamin Britten (TIME, Feb. 16)—his fourth in four years.

The setting, the plot, and the words were familiar enough to Londoners. For it was the same bawdy Beggar's Opera that John Gay had written more than two centuries ago. Unlike some others who had tinkered with Gay's libretto (Frederic Austin, Kurt Weill, Duke Ellington), Britten had followed it carefully, keeping to the squalor and backside-slapping of 18th Century London....