Aida began. I felt wonderful on the conductor's rostrum, and indeed the opera went very well, twice as well as the previous day. I had to stop the orchestra once because of a wrong entry leading to confusion in the violins, once I had to shout at the yawning and half-asleep timpanist, and once had to bring the orchestra back to order when the musicians were making a noise and climbinf up on their chairs to get a better view of what was happening on stage during the offstage chorus. However, apart from being an enjoyable experience, the rehearsal was of little help to me.