Thanks for all the kind comments. The clue on 1D came from real life: when my oldest son (now 34) was in fourth grade, his class wrote and staged an "opera." As part of the experience, I chaperoned a class trip to the Kennedy Center to see a dress rehearsal of an opera (don't recall which one). As the death scene went on and on, my son said, not particularly sotto voce, "would you just die already?!"