Oh, that piece!

I'll be writing about the various protests taking place across Scotland later on (when I might have some sense of perspective), but in the meantime, another little something on my customers.

This man came in a while back looking for a DVD of La traviata, speaking very highly of a touring production he'd seen at the Playhouse theatre, by the sounds of things the first and only time he'd seen the opera (he was concerned the brindisi wouldn't be included in every production). I recommended the Covent Garden production with Angela Gheorghiu's debut and Georg Solti at the helm, and he left apparently satisfied.

Until this morning, when he came in complaining that, while "the famous one" was included, they'd cut "the one where she's on her knees", clearly expecting me to know precisely which piece he meant (kneeling down, to prove his point, didn't help). While it was possible the different staging had blinded him to recognising the music, I fought hard not to point out that Solti probably had his reasons for leaving it out from the Covent Garden production ...