Covent Garden's forthcoming Parsifal boasts what I think are the priciest tickets ever flogged by the Royal Opera House. So how can anyone justify shelling out up to £190?
Well, if you consider you're getting 5 hours 15 mins of music, a £190 top price ticket works out at £36 an hour, probably less than an hour's cab ride, and certainly less than the hour I spent with the dental hygienist earlier today.
Compare this with La Traviata - 3 hours 25 mins for £175 top whack, which is £51 an hour - or Die Zauberflöte - 3 hours for £165 or £55 an hour, and Parsifal is starting to look cheap.
And it really scores against Salome - a measly 1 hour 40 mins for £110, or £66 per hour. Parsifal is only half that. A positive bargain. Relatively speaking.
I've been fleeced - I'm seeing Salome and Traviata, and missing Parsifal. But we'll be seeing Tannhauser at the Sydney Opera House on our honeymoon, and the tickets - the best in the house - are an amazing £75. So on the Intemezzo scale, isn't that the bargain of all time?
(And we're seeing Iphigenie on Sunday, so I can give a value-for-money report on Monday.)
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