Are the operas in question vulgar and inappropriate for children?
If so, then why would anyone broadcast them?
BTTT
“Are the operas in question vulgar and inappropriate for children?”
Why on earth would any composer bother writing an opera in which the benchmark was whether it has to be child-friendly?
Only someone opera-illiterate (as I guess NC PBS must be) would worry about that criterion.
Mozart’s Don Giovanni: rape and murder
Verdi’s Rigoletto: rape and murder
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly: sex by means of a phony marriage, suicide
Wagner’s Ring Cycle: murder, incest
Bizet’s Carmen: murder
Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier: As the curtain goes up the married Marchallin is post-coital in bed with her young lover
Verdi’s Aida: double suicide
I could go on all day, but you get the point.