Although there is debate as to how much, if any, contribution Hauptmann might have made to the text, Brecht is usually listed as sole author.
The work offers a socialist critique of the capitalist world. It has also been adapted to film and radio. The German-language version from entered the public domain in the US in In the winter of β28, Elisabeth Hauptmann , Brecht's lover at the time, received a copy of Gay's play from friends in England and, fascinated by the female characters and its critique of the condition of the London poor, began translating it into German.
Brecht at first took little interest in her translation project, [ citation needed ] but in April he attempted to interest the impresario Ernst Josef Aufricht in a play he was writing called Fleischhacker , which he had, in fact, already promised to another producer. Aufricht was seeking a production to launch his new theatre company at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin, but was not impressed by the sound of Fleischhacker.
Brecht immediately proposed a translation of The Beggar's Opera instead, claiming that he himself had been translating it [ citation needed ]. He delivered Hauptmann's translation to Aufricht, who immediately signed a contract for it. Brecht proposed Weill to write the music, and spent the next four months writing the libretto. Rather than translate the French himself, he used the translations by K. Ammer Karl Anton Klammer [ de ] , the same source he had been using since his earliest plays.
With the Dreigroschenoper we reach a public which either did not know us at all or thought us incapable of captivating listeners Opera was founded as an aristocratic form of art If the framework of opera is unable to withstand the impact of the age, then this framework must be destroyed In the Dreigroschenoper , reconstruction was possible insofar as here we had a chance of starting from scratch. Weill claimed at the time that "music cannot further the action of the play or create its background", but achieves its proper value when it interrupts the action at the right moments.
