The Column: Keep Calm and...Toi, Toi, Toi?

People ask me what have I learned, since starting a classical music consultancy company, that I didn't know when I was "just" a journalist. Well, plenty.

But one thing sticks out to me, and maybe it's because I'm Jewish, or maybe because I was just clearly out-of-date.

"It's bad luck to say good luck on opening night" carol the chorus in the musical theater version of The Producers. I know that, of course, but I thought that "break a leg" was the appropriate substitute. Sometimes I would come up with a knowing variation, "break a baton" to a conductor, say, or "break a bow" to a violinist.

What I did not know was what everyone, I mean everyone, seems to say in the business: "Toi, toi, toi!"

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The Column, James Inverne