Today's is Puccini's birthday.
In my student days one of the most influential books on opera was Kerman's Opera as Drama, which is now chiefly famous for its description of Tosca as a "shabby little shocker"! The passage of time has not enhanced Kerman's reputation in this matter whereas Puccini is now far more respectable in musicological circles that I would ever have imagined 30 years ago.
The charge against Puccini was that he was somehow a manipulator of emotions and that all his effects were manufactured rather than an integral part of the music. Is that really the case. At the end of the first act of La Boheme are we really being exploited by a cynical composer who knows just how to tear at the heartstrings. I don't think do. That love music is as fresh and sincere as the day it was first written. I am a cynical old rationalist who likes to think of music in abstract terms, but that duet gets me every time.
The other thing about Puccini is his completely theatrical mastery. I've often thought that if a young composer wanted to take an opera as a template he or she should get the score of Tosca out of the library and study the way in which Puccini crafts the drama. The pacing works beautifully: the action develops at a good pace when it needs to and then opens out where it needs to be more reflective. The big set pieces are well placed and the moments of high drama are all judged to perfection. Judged purely in musico dramatic terms Tosca must be one of the most masterly operas ever written.
Happy birthday!
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