The Marriage of Figaro by WA Opera

Sex. Secret liaisons. Cross dressing. Just another Saturday night at the opera.

The Marriage of Figaro, performed by WA Opera, is a hilarious comedic opera. The plotline is slightly complicated and reminiscent of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream due to its scheming lovers.

Basically Figaro and Susanna are set to be married, yet their employer Count Almaviva has decided to intervene and seduce Susanna - despite the fact that he is already married to Countess Rosina. Yet the Count is jealous of the young page, Cherubino, who has a crush on the Countess and forces him to join a military regiment in Selville. Figaro, Susanna and the Countess conspire to expose the Count's infidelity. There are also many cases of mistaken identity in between the farcical set of events.

I don't blame the little girl sitting in front of me needing a running commentary from her mother. But once you've got the characters straight, you can begin to enjoy the beautiful arias.

Sara Maciver as Susanna and Zoe Kikiros as Rosina share many poignant scenes together as they lament the pitfalls of loving a man. I really enjoyed their harmonies.

Also commanding an impressive stage presence is Luke Gabbedy as the Count. His first appearance onstage in a dressing gown with chest bared gets a welcome reception from the females in the audience.

But the stand out performance is Fiona Campbell as Cherubino. The flirtatious page boy swoons over the Countess but falls apart when he is sent away to the regiment. Cherubino is so adorable that you forgive him for his youthful naivete. My favourite piece was the aria dedicated to the Countess: Voi che sapete che cosa é amor — "You ladies who know what love is, see if I have it in my heart".

Last year I saw The Barber of Selville, which was my first operatic experience, and I found it easier to appreciate the sequel The Marriage of Figaro. Yes it is an accessible opera and attracted many people to go see it. However judging from the mixed audience of old and young I think opera has been grossly underrated. Opera is sexy after all!

The Best Is Yet To Come

Life is constant source of highs and lows. Sometimes it feels like there are more and more lows and less highs. To my dear friends, these are some songs that help keep us high off the ground.








Only 10 days till V Festival! Can't wait to see Duffy live.

Perfect Cupcakes for Afternoon Tea

My mum made these yummy cupcakes which we took to Somerville Auditorium last night. They are incredibly morish! She won't tell me the secret to making them, but if you're interested in having a taste-test she is happy to take orders.

For more info email me.

And now it's time for afternoon tea, so I'm off to have another cupcake...

Scavengers

The curbside collection encapsulates the wreckage of surburban life. An exercise step machine full of dust and cobwebs slumps on a yellowing front lawn. Within a 12 hour period, the machine is picked up and transported away by a couple on their evening walk. A sign on a wicker chair proclaims; "Please no scavengers!" in block capitals. The chair has since disappeared from the assemblage of mustard shelves and tree clippings. All that's left is a lone television set, with a crooked antenna. It faces the street, reflecting Panasonic plasma screen boxes from the house opposite the road.

I like watching the curbside, at the disappearing junk and the scavengers that sift through the unwanted pieces. All hoping to find a missing piece, in the fading sunlight of the street.

If I could bottle up the seabreeze...

Sculptures by the Sea is a summer must-see in Cottesloe. I love watching how people interact with all the different artworks, be it lying in the shade of a ship container or crawling through a mesh igloo. This exhibition is hosted on a beach "gallery", or maybe it should be known as the gallery of the people? 

Kassie and I had fun deconstructing the artwork by saying statements like; "I really like how the artist made use of the existing space to make a statement of man's destruction of the natural environment." and "Does the pencil's line have a infinite beginning and ending? How would you write your memoirs with it?"

Sculptures by the Sea will continue to delight children, adults and art lovers alike until March 24th.

Stilettos Make Me Tall and Happy

Bought these new heels from David Jones. You may recognise these as the pair Miranda Kerr is wearing in the David Jones Autumn Winter catalogue that was shot in Venice.

These Sachi "Blitz" heels are practically sold out. They are very comfy, supportive and have the addictive new shoe smell.

I love Sachi shoes, they're my next favourite shoe brand after Charles and Keith. They were on sale ($134.95!) and justified as shoe shopping is always good for the troubled economy...

They are perhaps a little too nice to wear for my Sexy Stiletto dance class but definitely for my next night out.

The End is Near (of Summer) - Beck's Music Box

Me and my brother, Ryan

The Perth International Arts Festival has wrapped up and on Saturday night I had the pleasure of visiting Beck's Music Box (BMB). BMB is a temporary stage set up especially for the festival which features a mosh/dance pit, elevated seating and couches and two bars selling Beck's beer. Its not so much a stage than a mini festival for Perth music lovers.

BMB sits on the Perth Esplanade, overlooking the Swan River and directly facing the Wheel of Perth. Each night during the festival a different concert is held, ranging from well-known artists like Jose Gonzales to Mogwai. After 10.30pm, the free "after-parties" begin which brings about summer shenanigans.

Architecture in Helsinki DJs spun some beats and a mixed 20something crowd flocked to the dance floor. There was a bit of That Beep and dance tunes that soon melded into old school tracks. Michael Jackson, Madonna and a version of Beyonce's All the Single Ladies acapella had everyone stomping their feet.

BMB has that cruisy festival vibe, everyone is relaxed and friendly than other Perth nightlifespots, there are lots of HYTs and it is a safe and secure venue. Now if only it would last all year round...

Perth Writers Festival - Reaching the Point of Illumination

Q: What exactly happens at a writers festival? 

A: Lots of writers (and readers) congregate to discuss books, ideas, politics, social issues, to laugh about jokes about their parents/failed marriages/characters, to fend off questions from over eager fans, to sign their books, to flog their books and to be DEEP - Deeply Engaging Even (a bit) Pretentious.

Perth Writers Festival

Saturday Sessions - 28 Feb 2009 at the University of Western Australia

The morning after the Coldplay concert I somehow managed to get out of bed and be at the Dolphin Theatre by 9.30am. Impressive feat for a Saturday morning!

Mining the Personal

Susan Duncan, Colette Livermore and Graeme Blundell

A little bit too personal? I wondered about the ramifications of using your own life as writing material, can it have legal consequences when you compare a Holy Order to a cult? Or when you write about your past marriages and have a not-so-civil relationship with your ex? Humour can mask a lot of emotions. Either way I was mostly impressed by Susan Duncan as she spoke about how she shared her writing with her mother and gave frank confessions to the crowd about the reality of looking after your ageing parents. 

Friends, Lovers, Family

Sarah Jones, Alice Nelson, Tracy Ryan and Jenny Pattrick

Probably featuring one too many writers, this session looked at the relationships of fictional characters. Less was said about the books and more was directly about the characters (who I knew little about). I thought Jones was the most engaging of the four, as she was very outgoing and friendly. She said, "The crux moment in a relationship is when you ask; who ARE you? Which really means who am I in relation to you?"

I asked the panel to what extent do the relationships form the identities of the characters? Jones remarked that it was crucial, particularly with her character which almost lived in a "fantasy" relationship with her partner. Pattrick commented that obviously all characters changed dramatically throughout the course of the novel as characters can only exist in relation to other characters and are defined by their relationships.

Pattrick's novel Grace Notes is a series of love letters between two older persons and she is a lovely  kiwi writer who has just received a fellowship to live in the South of France to write her next book. Poor her!  

Fingers on the Pulse

Tristan Bancks, Barry Jonsberg, Justine Larbalestier

Young adults writers perhaps have a tougher audience to appeal to. Tweens and teens can be fickle in their reading habits such as reading the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer even if they hated the first book. A different set of issues face YA writers like censorship in school libraries and silly rules like school librarians accepting the use of "OMG" but not "Oh My God!" 

What was interesting though that none of them purposefully set out to be YA writers, they just wanted to write and their work happened to fit in the YA genre. Either way they talked about their writing process and Bancks, a former Home and Away actor, showed off his writing journal - pages and pages of handwritten notes and cut outs of photos and character flash cards for quick ideas. Jonsberg, whose book is called The Dog Who Dumped On My Doona, writes without planning but does aim to write a minimum of 2,000 words a day. My aim is 500 words day, but I hope to build up to 2,000!

Kassie kindly bought me (and my Dad) Patriot Act by this writer who we may or may not have a bit of a crush on.

Sunday Sessions (not that kind of Sunday sesh!) - 1 March 2009

Family fun day at the festival is an odd mix of literary figures and their middle aged fans and children's writers and their pint-sized readers cavorting with clowns, Stuart Little and fairies. 

Writing About Race

Alice Pung, Imran Ahmad, James McBride

This extremely popular session was utterly hilarious, with quick witted comments from both the readers and writers and, brutally honest social observations about living in Western society as a racial minority. Ahmad had the audience in stitches with his short excerpts from Unimagined ranging from how he desperately wanted to be like James Bond (minus the martinis and women) and was banned from eating pork by his parents but had no idea why (Oh it's because of my religion!). 

I was looking forward to Pung speak, she's a young Chinese-Cambodian writer with a lot of spark. She talked about breaking the stereotype of the repressed, quiet migrant who came to Australia on a boat and the use of humour in her writing helping to do this.

But James McBride mainly stole the show, having just stepped off a plane from New York City and was charming yet profound.

"I look forward to the day where we're simply seen as writers, not minority writers," said McBride. McBride is well-known for his book The Colour of Water, is African American and not surprisingly rather opinionated on a range of issues and US foreign policy.  

I bought Growing Up Asian in Australia edited by Pung and got it signed. She was very friendly, genuinely excited to be in Perth for the festival and gave me a few gems of advice. 

On Brevity

Cate Kennedy, Robert Drewe, Julia Leigh

Short stories are a very precise form of fiction. According to the writers in this session; short stories always feature a small explosion, a point of illumination which usually occurs towards the end. The readings in this session were so intense that at one point the lights in the lecture theatre blacked out, causing Kennedy to cry out; "There's my point of illumination!"

I really enjoyed Drewe's reading of his story The Rip, having read Our Sunshine a few years back, I think Drewe is an amazing storyteller with such vivid imagery in his work.

All in all, this is my fourth time at the Perth Writers Festival which seemed to have less international authors this year and more homegrown writers. It does get bigger each year, and this may be the geek in me talking, I really do enjoy the lively debate, meeting writers and chatting to the other attendees who are captivated by the art of writing and its ability to let us leave the real world behind, if only for a weekend.

Books I Want To Read:

1. Unpolished Gems by Alice Pung
   
2. The Colour of Water by James McBride
   
3. Unimagined by Imran Ahmad
   
4. The Rip by Robert Drewe
   
5. Red Dress Walking by Sarah Jones
   

Podcasts of some of the sessions are available on the ABC website.

I really wish I was going to the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival on 7-11 October 2009. 

Coldplay - Viva La Viva Perth Concert 27/02/09

Going to a Coldplay concert brings high expectations. You expect to hear Yellow and have a huge singalong, to see Chris Martin and the band in military jackets and generally have a rocking good time. You don't expect to see giant yellow balloons being tossed around the Dome, the band running off the stage 3/4 of the way through the gig to sing in amongst the audience and wishing you'd caught one of the thousands of paper butterflies released into the crowd during Lovers in Japan.

The first Aussie concert of the Viva La Viva world tour ranks as one of my top five absolutely amazing concerts. The sheer scale of the show - from the lights and lasers, the hanging globes and projected screens and then there's the music. Mostly songs from the current CD with a good dose of Coldplay classics with a few medleys of songs thrown in.

Chris Martin has a great voice and ability to make the audience hang off each word. He brought the Dome down with his emotional encore of The Scientist and seemed almost self-conscious before he sang The Hardest Part solo. 

Fix You - a song that failed to inspire me on iTunes was heartwarming live. My favourite song - Lovers in Japan - was beautiful (even if the butterflies hadn't been there). 

The best part though - the Viva La Viva chorus that had the audience chanting all the way back to the carpark and stuck in my head all weekend.

My top five concerts are, thus far:

Michael Buble, 11 June 2008

Justin Timberlake, 9 November 2007

West Coast Blues and Roots Festival, April 2007

John Mayer, 22 April 2004