Operas are mostly silly melodramas, I can't think of any with good plots. Now a heroine I kinda dispise is Mimi in La Boheme, she sure has a long death for a tuberculosis ridden hag (oh pardon me, it was consumption..groan).

Now the music is beautiful, marvellous, romantic..viva bel canto!!

Carmen is silly in that it's a Frenchman writing a story about "exotic" Spain. I was in Seville recently and did think of Carmen :)