Charles Coffey

Charles Coffey (late 17th century – 13 May 1745) was an Irish playwright, opera librettist, composer, book writer, and arranger of music, born in County Westmeath. His career spanned both Dublin and London, and his works established him as a significant figure in the development of the ballad opera form.

Coffey's earliest known work, A Wife and No Wife, was performed in Dublin in 1724. His ballad opera The Beggar's Wedding premiered at Dublin's Smock Alley Theatre on 24 March 1729, a work that drew on the popularity of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera from the previous year. The Dublin production initially failed, prompting Coffey to relocate to London, where the piece opened at the Haymarket on 29 May 1729. In a shortened version titled Phebe, or The Beggar's Wedding, the work achieved considerable success in London, though it did not return to Dublin until 1754. That same year, 1729, Coffey also produced Southwark Fair, or The Sheep-Shearing.

His fifth ballad opera, The Devil to Pay, or The Wives Metamorphos'd, written with John Mottley and based on Thomas Jevon's The Devil of a Wife, appeared in 1731. It became the most successful ballad opera of the eighteenth century after The Beggar's Opera. A German translation, Der Teufel ist los, oder Die verwandelten Weiber, was performed in Berlin on 24 January 1743 and played a notable role in shaping the development of the German Singspiel. The Devil to Pay is among Coffey's verified Broadway credits alongside Female Parson, or The Beau in the Suds, a ballad opera from 1730.

Coffey's subsequent works included The Boarding-School, or The Sham Captain (1733), based on Thomas d'Urfey's Love for Money, or, The Boarding-School; The Merry Cobler, or The Second Part of The Devil to Pay (1735); and The Devil Upon Two Sticks, or The Country Beau (1745). Coffey died in London and was buried at St Clement Danes.