I have always loved opera myself, tho never so much as in my early teens, when I saw every production in the Sadlers Wells repertoire at successive Saturday matinées; which meant getting up at 6 to go down by Tube from Golders Green to Angel to get cheap on-the-day tickets -- oh I wasn't I ever' a dedicated young fellow in my youth!

But I am surprised no-one has quoted [unless I somehow missed it] Burl Ives's story in his early memoir 'Wayfaring Stranger' of his dutiful visits to the Met Opera during his early days in NY: "One day while standing through a Wagnerian opera, the Almighty sent a ray of light through my skull, and I realised, 'This stinks'."

≈M≈