Of course, opera has plot - and I was already anticipating all those unknown stories I was about to discover - but its main function is to deliver the characters as swiftly as possible to the point where thet can sing of their deepest emotions. Opera cuts to the chase - as death does. So now, contented indifference before Middlesbrough against Slovan Bratislava coexisted with a craving for an art in which violent, overwhelming, hysterical and destructive emotion was the norme; an art which seeks, more obviously than any other form, to break your heart.