This happened in opera during the 19th century. Subjects for operas turned to more realistic themes. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the themes were often mythological or based on antiquity. The 19th century saw a rise in operas (that last and are still popular to this day) based on real people and current events.

For example, La bohème by Giacomo Puccini is based on La Vie de Bohème by Henri Murger, published in 1851. It's plot revolves around Mimi and Rodolfo, young artist lovers. Mimi eventually dies of tuberculous. Giuseppe Verdi's La traviata also has a heroine who dies of tuberculous, though she and her lover Alfredo live together out of wedlock and she's an escort.

While I'm not going to go too much into depth into the history of opera, as that's /u/caffarelli 's baby, I will comment.

Absolutely, opera is violent. Super violent. There are enough operas where all the main characters are dead by the end that it's a trope of opera. Murder is common, but so is dying of consumption, suicide, or even dying of singing (yes, that's a thing).

La Boheme is a good example, of these poor, vagrant artists living in terrible conditions, hanging out with prostitutes, and dying of disease. It's a great story and very tragic, but does that promote a violent or immoral lifestyle, or is it a warning against it?

The same argument could be made of Shakespeare. In his tragedies, a really damned significant number of the cast are dead by the end. Typically by murder of varying degrees. Poisoning, stabbing, suicide, drowning in a barrel of wine - take your pick. Shakespeare kills off his characters at a rate that would impress even George R. R. Martin (well, maybe not).

That being said, is Shakespeare glorifying violence in doing so? Do you see a play and see this kind of violence in a positive light, or something to aspire to? Is he making a statement on morality at all, or simply telling a story? Would a person in the Elizabethan era walk out of Hamlet and want to go kill people?

I think it's a stretch to say that ANY opera is actually PROMOTING violence. Sure it's on display in nearly every opera, and you can watch opera singers singing their way into their own deaths at every turn. But would I consider any opera to be endorsing a violent or immoral lifestyle? I don't think so at all.

As for other genres, I think it's a stretch to say that Rock or Jazz were promoting a violent or immoral lifestyle at all. A significant chunk of the hysteria about that came from overreactions by the establishment. Rock and Jazz have their origins in blues, which come from very lower class origins (typically black origins), and talk extensively about living in poverty, and the challenges they face as a result.

In fact, some of the earlier criticisms of Blues/Jazz/Rock was referring to it as "Race Music", which is to denigrate the music by sole reason of it being African American in origin. The Nazis banned Jazz and Blues for the reason that it was written by black people.

Hell, even Elvis Presley had his music banned, and was criticized of sexual immorality in his music because of his style of dancing, and his music had nothing in it that was promoting violence. The criticisms were mainly the establishment reacting to a style of music they didn't understand, with the excuse that listening to such music would lead to immorality.

Now, is there any truth to that? Yes and no. Blues in particular has a lot of crossover with prison music, and some of the earlier Blues recordings come from prisoners and are songs about prison life. So you have a genre of music that comes from a very poor community that's mainly black, that has a lot of prison history, and this music is starting to gain traction in wider society. But is an upright, moral person going to suddenly become immoral and violent from listening to it?

So imagine you're a white middle class person in the 1940s in the US, where racial segregation is very much a part of every day life. And your kids suddenly are listening to this music that's about poor black people in prison, and hanging out at jazz clubs with black people, and dancing in a far more sexualized manner than anything seen before. Wouldn't you say this was promoting immorality in your children? Now, the real question, is there anything immoral about it, or is the music promoting any kind of immorality? There's the interesting debate.