I have a friend who has a friend who is a composer of international stature, heavily invested in the aesthetics of difficulty. He's also opera-addicted and likes to get to the Met whenever he comes through town. My friend remembers a phone call from his friend that went about like this: 'Listen, they're doing Bohème tonight. Let's go; but please don't tell anybody.'

Perhaps you'll recognise the sentiment. Half a dozen of Puccini's operas have held their audience for going on a hundred years. Bohème continues to run neck and neck with Carmen as the opera most frequently performed. Tosca and Butterfly are cash-cows in every company's barn. If you're fond of operas at all, you are quite likely fond of Puccini's. But probably you think that you shouldn't be. Puccini is a taste one disapproves of in proportion as one shares it. Since preference and judgment are supposed to run together in a well-ordered sensibility, his operas pose a small but genuine critical conundrum.

LRB 2 November 2000 | PDF Download