My Daughter was kind of humming singing one of those iconic classic songs everybody knows. They get in your head and you can’t get them out, even if you try, but mostly you don’t try because you sing along. If she kept it up, Chaz and I would have started singing along. You just can’t help it.

I said, “I wonder if people immediately recognize what’s going to be an iconic classic hit the first time they hear it.”

I thought, of course, of Rigoletto. Verdi knew his audience, knew the power of his pen. That’s why he barred anyone and everyone from rehearsals. He knew that if anyone heard “La donna e mobile,” it would be out on the streets. The gondoliers would already be singing it, organ grinders would be grinding it out all over the city. He didn’t want that to happen before the premiere. He wanted it to be a surprise. After the performance was ok. He knew people would leave the theater humming it, and it would be all over Italy and the world. He had been through it many times before. He was like Tchaikovsky. And Bob Dylan and the Beatles.