This is a story about the great violinist, Sergio Knockety.
Mr. Knockety was quite a snob about his music. He insisted that everything be done "his way" and in "his time". And he insisted that he would only play opera music. He was so obsessed by opera that he was nicknamed, "Opera" by the press and his (not quite) peers.
He was invited to play with a large European orchestra, and accepted the invitation on the provisio that they would only play pieces from great operas.
On the night of the event, he was the first to arrive and was quite agitated that the others were late. They also were spending too much time chatting with each other, but since he did not speak the language there, he was left out of all the visiting.
He became more and more agitated as the time to began drew near; everybody was still joking and laughing. He incensed with the waste of time, so he hit upon the idea of going to the piano and striking the key to begin the tuning process.
He hit the key and nobody paid any attention. He struck the key harder, but it did no good. So, he struck the key many times as hard as he could. No one paid any attention to him, so he raised his violin to his shoulder and began to tune it up to match the tone from the piano.
He then returned to his chair, fuming that no one else was getting their instruments ready.
Finally, the members of the orchestra settled down, the pianist struck the key, and everybody started tuning their instruments.
Everybody except, Opera, that is!
The violinst sitting next to Opera, leaned over and asked in broken English, "Why you no tune your violin with us?"
Mr. Knockety looked at him in disgust and said,
"Everybody know that Opera Knockety only tunes once!"