Why Sieglinde doesn't sit in the orchestra

Well, aside from the money thing. Was at tonight's Butterfly, happily perched in my usual box, but had family down on orche$tra level. So during the meditative humming chorus that ends the first scene of Act II, with Butterfly and Suzuki and the freaky bunraku boy preparing for vigil, they hear some guy behind them solemnly whisper to his seatmate, "He's not gonna come." And then, there was the lady to their right who just had to clear her staphy nasalwork whenever Butterfly felt like singing softly. Also old people who are into candy wrappers, plenty of them down there. Up where Sieglinde sits, Lois & Co. don't even so much as breathe for entire acts.

[I'll add ecstatic words about Maria Gavrilova tomorrow. Right now I'm dead. Night.]