A spectacular opera could be made about the life of Australian collector , feminist and opera fan , the late Margaret Vine ,who had been an art researcher at the Australian National Library , Canberra.
By Peter Simon
Called Rocky Road, after her Magnetic Island residence,on Olympus Crescent, it could be bigger than the Rocky Horror Picture Show . Imagine a grand parade featuring her colostomy bag named Stanley, rock wallabies , kookaburras and curlews draped in jewellery , dancing books , assorted prancing retro clothing , a pet Beagle named Ponsonby who had a library card , and jiving telephone directories , which would make Giuseppe Verdi's much raved about parade in Aida , that included elephants , giraffes and horses , seem prety dull.
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| Some of Margaret's pet curlews in the rocks. |
To add to the spectacle of the unique opera , because Margaret had green fingernails , Magnetic Island children wondered if she were a witch ; she told them she was , but did now have a broomstick, so a coven of grounded island witches could be included , perhaps even Macbeth ?
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A small number of the pet wallabies that jumped off large granite boulders onto her roof are shown above. |
Her love of opera was such that she had two cabinets jam-packed with opera CDs and made special plane trips to Sydney to attend opera performances.
Because she had difficulty sitting and the need to cope with her colostomy bag , she had to pay for two airline seats each way .
Little Darwin recently reran articles about the remarkable Margaret Vine. As a teenager, she was told that because she was a girl, who would probably get married early and have children, she would not be sent to university, but her brother would .
She went on to carve out a distinctive career as an Australian art researcher, collector , conservationist , feminist . Margaret carried out reseach work for the epic tome Documents on Australian Internationl Affairs 1901-l918 which included Bulletin cartoons in the illustrations that could feature in the Rocky Road extravaganza .
Some books from her collection, in boxes which once formed the base of her bed , went to Special Collections, Eddie Koiki Mabo Library , James Cook University.
Recently pulled out of a dark corner were cardboard boxes containing a broken run of National Library of Australia News magazines from the l970s to the l990s that had belonged to Margaret , which she had given me .
Some of them contained handwritten annotations and underlining of text by her , including question and exclamation marks . Each volume was closely examined .
This resulted in ideas for a swag of follow up stories and the proposed Rocky Road opera brainwave.
The September 1994 issue featured a cover photograph of opera composer Larry Sitsky, the associated four page article receiving much attention by Vine, indicating she may have written a condensed piece about him and his works.
