Tancredi by GIOACCHINO ROSSINI

There was a time when audiences loved a good cry -- at the movies, or on TV, or at the opera. There was a time when people expected a tragic story to end, well, tragically. You know, back when scores of young women sat in the movie house sobbing, and shaking, and refusing their dates' generous offers of "comfort," while two teen-agers played out the "Romeo and Juliet" death scene on the silver screen. Back when people still cried at seeing that same tale resurface, 400 years later, on the streets of New York City in "West Side Story."

Is anyone writing stuff like that anymore? It doesn't seem like it. Movie and TV execs probably think the kids with the money, the key demographic, wouldn't stand for it. At least not without a happy ending. These days, Romeo and Juliet might not fly unless the Montagues and Capulets come to a tearful reconciliation, just in time to stop the double suicide of their offspring, giving the audience a chance to applaud while the final credits roll. And "West Side Story" might have to end with Tony and Maria walking off into the sunset while the Jets and the Sharks merge into one, mutually respectful, interracial gang -- maybe with the goal of forming a software company.

Then again, the demand for happy-endings-at-all-costs didn't start with the folks who crowd into the multi-plexes, or who mob your local Blockbuster whenever the latest Leo di Caprio film makes it to video. Someone probably tried to tell Sophocles that he might have done better at the box office if Oedipus were to find out that he'd married, say, his cousin instead of his mother. His second cousin. And if Shakespeare hadn't owned his own theater, some executive producer probably would complained, "Did you have to kill off Cordelia, too?"

And then there was the composer, Gioacchino Rossini. If he hadn't stuck a happy ending onto Voltaire's venerable tragedy Tancredi, it might not have made it to a single opera house. But, he WAS Rossini - one of opera's true megastars - and despite the new ending, he managed to preserve most of the plot and create some pretty hip tunes in the process. To hear some - and for a little bit more on this silly, happy-ending business - tune into NPR's At the Opera, with Lou Santacroce. And after that, stick around for NPR World of Opera, to hear Rossini's entire tale of tragically starcrossed lovers - happy ending and all!

Music featured this week on At the Opera: