Part of the genius of Mozart (the Vienna years anyway), Verdi, Puccini, etc was that they found stories that would work with the kind of music they knew they could write. They might have sucked with other kinds of stories but the chose well and the results speak for themselves. When you find the short story where you already hear the music in your head as you are reading, that's the one.
I could make some recs but they are all things I am hoarding for myself.
Houndentenor
"Get the trash off the street and back on the stage where it belongs." -- Bette Midler
