Donald Macleod explores why previously disparaging attitudes to Menotti's music have recently mellowed. His highly popular works were derided by highbrow critics as naïve and sentimental, yet Menotti never deviated from following his own path, insisting that one of the primary ingredients of good opera was the ability to bring tears to an audience's eyes. As his biographer John Gruen pointed out: "In later years even his greatest detractors would credit him with a flawless technique". Show less