After Hat was published, I got a letter from a woman telling me of the thrilling performance of a... of an opera called The Twins at the Edinburgh Festival. An opera based on my piece, The Twins. And I was taken aback because I had not been approached for any such opera. And... Colin said he was sorry, he'd forgotten to let me know and to seek permission, but he was sure I would like it, so I said, 'I'm sure too, but let me listen to the opera and get the libretto'. Something which I regret is that I... I stopped it. I stopped it because there was something in the libretto I didn't like, and what I didn't like was an amplification of something I didn't like in my own work. I had described the twins as having extremely myopic eyes and spectacles, and sort of peering around, and having very thick spectacles, and in the libretto they were wearing small telescopes over their eyes, and... I've... I've always been sensitive, and people are sensitive, about physical description and this was what one patient had objected to in the book of Awakenings, but I... it may have been... it may have been a work of art and I... I would not want to stand in the way of a work of art.

It was at the time that I was approached for an opera based on The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and I... I couldn't imagine what that would be like, and then [Michael] Nyman, the composer, said he would show me a treatment. In fact, he showed me the complete opera the next day, and so he had obviously done it and... and sort of assumed I would like it. I said to the librettist [Christopher Rawlence] that it was very important that he... he speak to Mrs P, the woman who would be mistaken for a hat, to see whether it would be okay for... for him to write a libretto. In fact, a very nice, warm, very cordial relation sprang up between Chris and Mrs P, and she occupies a much more important place in the opera than she does in my account. I was scared and anxious... very, very tense when the opera was performed here in New York and Mrs P was sitting there. I was watching... watching from the aisles and interpreting, or misinterpreting every expression on her face and every movement, but then she came out, and Nyman was there, and Chris, and she... she said, 'You've done honour to my husband', and I... I loved that, and it made me feel we hadn't taken advantage or misrepresented in any way. I hope I can do honour to patients and that operas or plays or whatever, films which are inspired by my work that will also do honour to the patients. But I have a bad feeling about... about The Twins. They themselves were severely impaired intellectually and would not have comprehended.