Steve Schwartz wrote:

> The Puccini Problem:
> Opera, Nationalism, and Modernity
> Alexandra Wilson
> Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press. 2007. 321 pp.
>
> Wilson has not written a book for the faint of heart. It reads like a
> reworked Ph.D. thesis.

That's what it is, all right.  University of London.  Original subtitle
is "Nationalism, Gender and Decadence in Italian Puccini Reception."

> one of my favorite music critics refers to "melodies cheaper than
> Puccini," and Joseph Kerman famously called Tosca "a shabby little
> shocker."

Even Britten recoiled at the suggestion that any of his music might in
any way resemble Puccini's.  (Mentioned somewhere in Humphrey Carpenter's
biography of Britten.)

Jim Tobin

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