William Hoffman is my dearest Opera Queen, a playwright and opera librettist for many well-known operas. He wrote "The Ghosts of Versailles" which had its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera House many years ago and was recently produced in Los Angeles to much acclaim. Once, he and the composer, John Corigliano, promised me a role in the chorus if the Met produced it again but they did not—and thus, although I once sang and studied opera, no debut for me in New York City. Once, in a workshop, he played the part of a Nazi-era anti-Semite in one of his own plays—and he was so good that he genuinely frightened me by his performance.