Puccini writes well, but most of his arias are forgettable, at least to the non-fan...
There would seem to be a bit of contradiction here. If most of his arias are forgettable, how does he write well? In any case, I myself tend to forget Mozart arias more quickly than Puccini ones, and in general, I think you'll find that Puccini is considered to be fairly accessible to the neophyte relative to most other opera composers. La Boheme packs 'em in every time. Also, opera composers wrote for an audience, wrote not only to express the creative font of the soul but to stage a lucrative production. Operas were funded by impresarios from early on, and were risky and expensive ventures. So, part of the difference you see between, say, Puccini and Mozart is a function of appealing to entirely different audiences, particularly as the genre's audience broadened over a century.
This resulted in some rather ludicrous eccentricities here and there. For example, by the mid-19th century, virtually any opera performed in France simply had to have a ballet scene in it, because the French loved ballet (accordingly, many ballets performed in Italy included the occasional opera chorus). So, many of Verdi's operas have several versions, the one performed in France invariably containing some usually quite forgettable ballet music.
The composer also had to contend with ever-truculent opera singers, the 19th century equivalent of today's Hollywood glitterati. Parts were often written with particular singers in mind, and were subject to their review and acceptance -- for snagging a particular tenor or soprano for a premiere could guarantee an audience and at least a reasonable shot at a good run. If they rejected the score or the libretto, catastrophe could ensue. Needless to say, the composers often despised the singers, and vice versa.
The histrionics you mention (and Verdi was certainly capable of the same, witness Il Trovatore, whose plot is nearly indecipherable with characters chest thumping and dying all over the place) were therefore perhaps more a function of what both singers and opera-goers wanted to see in the middle to late 19th century. I am at the moment trying to recall a Verdi opera that does not include the obligatory swordfight. That's Entertainment... |
