Rankl had insisted on taking the whole orchestra on the tour, just to be on the safe side, so there were far too many of us and people were so bored they were begging to be allowed to play. We started rehearsals at once for "Tristan" and for "Rigoletto" which was produced in Glasgow. Stage bands were always "cued in", i.e. played by the orchestra in the pit, on tour and I went to play the E flat clarinet and witnessed a very curious phenomenon on the first night of "Rigoletto". The Duke, tenor Kenneth Neate (an Australian ex-policeman) was sitting at a table for the opening of Act II and pushed back his chair as he rose for his recitative bewailing the loss of Gilda. The chair scraping on the stage gave out a distinct note which Neate took as the first note he sang - but it wasn't the right one. The leader, Jo Shadwick, had to keep playing the correct note loudly and repeatedly to get him back into the right key. << less