Pearls, Frocks, and Books

I went to the opera last night, because I'm a fancy lady with cool and generous friends, and got to watch Bizet's The Pearl Fishers, reimagined to be a little less gross colonialism, and a lot more "exposing the ugliness of luxury goods" - in this case, a cult-like board of directors on a luxury retreat at the White Pearl resort.

It was gorgeous to look at and listen to. I love Bizet's musical commitment to capital-D DRAMA. It was also very evident that Opera NZ gets the most funding of any NZ creative organisation. They're spending the money well. I'd love to see what other organisations could do with similar levels of funding HINT HINT FUTURE GOVERNMENTS.

It was also, once it settled in, very funny, with a humour that arises from the show's embrace of the inherent ridiculousness of the circumstances. Here's Laila (Madison Nonoa, superb), singing in a Sia-esque hat fringed with long crystal beaded strings. Here are the lovers, trying to lie down in an spherical glamping pod with no flat surfaces. Here's Zurga (Samuel Dundas, falling apart splendidly) taking a bath while he dangles a whiskey glass from his fingers, morosely singing about condemning his best friend to death. Here are the chorus, performing quasi-ritualistic gestures of devotion to a powerpoint slide of the company's founder. It couldn't be clearer that these people have too much money and not enough sense, and that they should not be in charge of life or death decisions. And yet!

It did have flaws. I don't expect lyrical excellence from opera, but this libretto is famously weak, to the point where one of the librettists is on the record (and in the programme) as saying "Well, if I'd known Bizet was good, I would have tried a little harder." This wasn't aided in the slightest by the surtitles translating maybe a third of the words. Stop leaving out character names! It's important for us to know who these people are!

My other all-too-frequent pet peeve with opera is that while the physical action from Laila and Zurga was fantastic (and Nadir, subbing in at the last minute, gets a pass), the chorus movement was awkward at best. Voice and face: wonderful. Bodies: just kind of there, occasionally drifting awkwardly around the (admittedly crowded) stage or gesturing without conviction.

But I had a great time. I like the sublime, and I like the sublimely ridiculous, and I especially liked that when Zurga got out of the bath, the audience was audibly both disappointed and amused that some careful towel draping hid the good bits. As he stumbled around the stage in maudlin dissipation, a man in the seat behind me whispered, "I think he's had a few". Yes! Rich men are so emotional. We really shouldn't put them in charge of companies.

Frocktober continues apace. It's Day 15 of the 31 Frocktober days, and I'm pleased that it took this long to wear my first repeat frock. Actually, it's a pinafore that I'm wearing a different top with, so is it REALLY a repeat? Let's say no.

When it comes to what I wear out of the house, it's usually dresses or skirts, but I am more of a jeans girl at home, and since it was the school holidays I spent the first twelve days of October mostly at home. Putting on a dress every day (and taking the photos!) was a little bit of a chore, but I'm having fun, and fundraising for ovarian cancer research is an excellent cause. You can support the fundraiser here, and follow my daily frocks on my Instagram.

What's Karen Been Reading:

It was the school holidays! SO MANY THINGS. Some of the highlights were:

• The Silver Book, by Olivia Laing. This is my first Laing, and I am not at all surprised that they started in non-fiction, because the amount of research that must have gone into this brilliant book made me so happy. Fellini, Pasolini, Danilo Donati and the silver city of 70s Roman cinema all come to life in this thrilling queer love story/thriller/tragicomedy.
• A Waltz of Sinister Import, by Stephanie Burgis. The final novella in Lady and Lord Riven's adventures through Europe, where Lady Riven's desire to research supernatural beings and her vampire husband's desire to chill out and admire his clever wife have been interrupted by their royal monarch, the King of England, who desires them to figure out what the hell is happening at a top-tier diplomatic event where everyone keeps losing time in a magical waltz. Worst of all, Margaret, Lady Riven, is going to have to--ugh--socialise. Stephanie writes really wonderful fantasy comedies of manners, and this is no exception. Also, there was one reference to a historical character where I immediately messaged Stephanie, "OF COURSE SHE DID". No further context.
• FREYA MARSKE okay, I feel like I read something she wrote? A while ago? But I must not have been in the right frame of mind to appreciate it, because when I tell you that she wrote a gaslamp sapphic love story in the middle of a magical murder mystery on a cruise ship, and it was very hot and very clever and super feminist, you say, Karen, that sounds so far up your alley it's pretty much living in your house. Yes! Correct! Read The Last Binding trilogy, it's terrific.
• Audiobook: Mapping the Heavens, by Priyamvada Natarajan. I love a thoughtful and occasional critical history of science, and this examination of cosmological discoveries certainly provided that. I was familiar with many of the theories (I don't understand them, as such, but I knew what they were) but I wasn't at all familiar with how much they'd been wrangled over, and how so many of the ideas that I would consider fundamentals were radical theories that the scientific establishment rejected out of hand–until they had to accept them.
• The Summer War, Naomi Novik. Novik is a mistress of the twist, and this one is great - surprising, but as soon as it happens, you realised that it couldn't have happened any other way. I love a tight story, and this novella is excellently plotted, and filled with flawed, sympathetic characters.

You will hear from me again by the end of the month, and I hope that yours goes well!

Love, Kate,

That Healey Girl is the weeklyish newsletter of Kate (or Karen) Healey, a romance and speculative fiction author who lives in Ōtautahi, New Zealand and shakes plots loose by wandering along the river. Feel free to share the newsletter with anyone you think would like it.

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