Up here in our neck of the woods, no white-out, no ‘worst blizzard of all time,’ no ‘mother of all storms’ as devoutly promised by weather forecasters, mayors, and all those involved in the self-promotion industry. They got our attention. I bought 2 cans of chili and ran a bathful of water, against the anticipated electricity outage ‘for more than a million people.’ Boston and Long Island received maybe half of the promised 30 inches of snow. We got less than 1/4 of an inch. I’m very disappointed. I like weather.

Beautiful country up here – these are 2 views of the mountain on whose lower foothills we live.

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Do you still have your Christmas tree up, lights on, ornaments twinkling? Then like us you are a follower of Stephen Fry who reminds us all that the old tradition was to keep the tree up till Candlemas (Feb 2), not Epiphany (Twelfth Night). Either that or you’re just lazy, like us, and enjoy a good excuse – aside from loving the look of the tree (and all that effort hanging our many, many ornaments!)

What news? Our tenant & future neighbor Dan came over for supper. Tonight he’s hosting us.
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Had lunch at Cucina with Tommy & Donna, our Roll Magazine sponsors, employers & dear friends.

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And met with Robert and Charlotte to deliver proof copes of their respective poetry volumes to Michael and Billie, our first poets in the Dr. Cicero Poetry Series, edited by Robert.

In the studio: Claire at work on a portrait, one of quite a few recent commissions. I love the snowy backdrop. Shown on the right, two of her recent portraits, including one of a familiar and well-loved Woodstock figure: Michael Esposito, a fellow painter and former rock-musician, now bicycle repairman and all-around secular saint. It’s one of Claire’s most striking recent works. Likewise the drawing of our friend Trey, of whom Claire did a full-length lifesize oil painting; the drawing, in my opinion one of her very best, is a wonderful composition in itself, as well as a display of marvellous skill in rendering a long body curved and stretched out towards us from a sitting position.

Two little leftovers from today’s round-up: firstly, the Weston director’s best new idea (and simplest! why didn’t I think of it, over the 3 years of composition and the months of rehearsal?! I could kick myself! Such a basic theatrical idea): that the robin, so important a character in The Secret Garden, should be danced! By an actor. This not only works deliciously and magically but also once more embodies Burnett’s sense of the robin as friend; besides which, I always saw the robin as Burnett herself, human as bird and vice versa, guiding Mary to the secret garden. And secondly my dear friend Charlotte’s photo taken in the Chinese buffet (and nothing to do with opera), my hat! my cap, which fits me as perfectly as it did the day I chose it after long examination of dozens and dozens like it in Tetouan market, in Morocco, 45 years ago. It wasn’t my favorite design, but the fit was decisive; I had doubts, but thank goodness I set them aside. These 45 years it has never left my side, through countless moves of abode. Always useful (in the freezing cold we’re enduring), holding its place night and day (literally, I wear it at night too) as if made for my skull. I think it was.

Highlight of early 2015, Nolan and I visited Vermont for the re-mounting of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, our newly revised opera, by the Weston Opera Company. This diminutive, impoverished opera company somehow manage to survive in farthest rural Vermont, shuttling between their base, a tiny theater in Weston, and a huge newly refurbished theater in Rutland, the Paramount (more gilding than the whole of Venice – and I counted 40 cherubs), where we attended the first performance. Our brilliant designer, Naomie Kremer, took the extroardinary video sets she designed for San Francisco, and reduced them to a ‘single camera’ version for Vermont, not as spectacular but still mind-boggling in their beauty and effectiveness. From the new opening, on the train, brought to life by Naomie’s video taken inside a train compartment looking out across the Yorkshire moors, to the astonishing interiors with wallpaper that flickers – live, moving foliage superimposed on leafy designs (embodying Frances Hodgson Burnett’s creed, bringing the outdoor in and the indoor out) – to the surrealist splendor of the garden itself, successively in winter, spring and summer, her designs were the star of the show.

As the audience entered, an image of a sheep peacefully lying in the moorland greeted their eyes, until they gazed at it and were amazed to see that the sheep is cudding, and the grass faintly waving – it’s alive! Our cast was simply excellent, in places an improvement even over the top-of-the-line San Francisco cast, chosen from countrywide auditions. And the Vermont director came up with fine ideas which will go straight into our text. Above all, even the production’s limitations were exactly the right shock to my system. They freed me from the mesmerizing effect of the original sumptuous production and allowed me at last to step right back from the libretto, of which I had never been entirely proud, to see exactly where the passages are that let it down, and, more importantly, how to correct them. On the 5-hour drive back to Manhattan to get Nolan to his fight home to California, we sorted the whole opera out once more! – and now I’m convinced we have it in a shape which will delight Milwaukee, Tulsa, and Houston, some of the opera houses who’ve shown interest in mounting a production – inshallah!