THANK YOU!

Thanks to all of you whose thoughts, spells and good wishes buoyed me up so much yesterday night. Thanks to those friends and colleagues who turned up to cheer - you were wonderfully loud :-) (yes OK I'll hand over the promised cash now, just don't tell anyone...). Thanks especially to Rosalind for the honour of your presence, and your support and encouragement. (Obviously here's where I am meant to thank my parents for everything, and of course I am grateful to them from the bottom of my heart; but any more of this and I am going to be forced to wear a sickly pink dress and burst into saccharine and eternal tears!!)

Thanks to all those who brought or sent flowers. They were all beautiful. My dressing room ended up being a multicoloured florist's nightmare - how glorious!

The astute may be able to guess from the above that the première went well! Judging from the reactions, it would appear to have been a huge success. I unfortunately don't remember an awful lot about it. (I would hasten to add that this is due to the effects of an adrenalin rush, rather than alcohol - a première tends to increase the effect of that naturally-produced drug, and I really believe that the more one is actually "in the moment" on stage, the less one consciously remembers.) I have a distinct memory of falling hard to the floor, losing both shoes in the process, having unexpectedly encountered the edge of the pool on a wild-eyed screech around the stage; on my way down I had time to think, well this is ironic, given how much I am meant to fall intentionally in this piece; and once down, a slightly hysterical "BUGGER! Now what do I do?" sprang fully-formed into my mind. Absolutely no idea how that resolved itself, but it appears it did; I definitely had shoes on when next I remember surfacing from my immersion to wonder whether I'd actually chipped a tooth whilst manhandling the poor tenor in a vicious rage...

I loved it. Loved being part of what I believe is a world-class performance; loved the way my fabulous colleagues were on fire with inspiration; loved the reaction!

THANK YOU ALL!!!