R. C. Smith — Audio Recordings — The Courtship Gift
The Courtship Gift Audio Book
“The Courtship Gift (A South Sea Cannibal Opera)” is a story I have written in early 2014. Often, when reading one of Sabrina’s little stories, I had thought there was an operaic quality to them, and this time I finally decided to carry this idea out. I’m serious about this being an opera libretto — someone should set it to music — but for now, let’s be content with spoken words. Sabrina, sadly, will not be able to hear them, she has died in the spring of 2017.
Here you can find some background information on Brinala, where this story takes place (this is also included in the text that you can download).
“The Courtship Gift” is included in the e-book “Herons and Heroines” — see Stories.
You can download it there in plain text, PDF, ePub and Mobi format.
Warning
Befitting the genre of opera seria, this is a tragic story of love and death. It’s rather over-the-top, with graphic scenes of sex, cannibalism, violence and torture.
Do not listen to this audio book if you are offended by descriptions of sexuality and violence.
(If these are what you’re mainly interested in, you can skip the first part with the Introduction, the Letter, and the Essay, and start with the Announcer, file #6. This is not recommended, though.)
The Voices in order of appearance:
RC: Introduction, Editor, Essay, Announcer, Male Ship Captain
Luxie Maxwell: Lady A, Cannibal Princess — luxiemaxwell.carrd.co
Katzy_Kins: Toy — linktr.ee/Katzy_Kins
shennychwan: Mistress — twitter.com/shennychwan
TafseriousT: Male Warrior
Download
The Courtship Gift audio book — zip file, containing 12 mp3 files and the PDF e-book.
Download file size: 75.7 MB
Total duration: 83.5 minutes
Published September 2, 2021
Listen online
01. Introduction (2:40)
02. Editor’s Preface (3:45)
03. The Letter by Lady A. to RB (6:17)
04. The Essay on Brinala by Lady A, Parts 1 and 2 (11:35)
05. The Essay on Brinala by Lady A, Parts 3 and 4 (8:16)
06. Announcer (1:12)
07. Act 1, Scene 1 — Toy, Mistress (8:09)
08. Act 1, Scene 2 — Toy (5:20)
09. Act 2, Scene 1 — Male Warrior, Cannibal Princess, Toy (8:06)
10. Act 2, Scene 2 — Toy, Cannibal Princess (7:46)
11. Act 3, Scene 1 — Male Ship Captain, Mistress, Toy (12:33)
12. Act 3, Scene 2 — Mistress, Toy (7:54)
“A Few Personal Words About Brinala”, “The Audio Recording” and the Appendix “The Humiliated Courtship Gift” by S. Ireland, which can be found in the e-book, are not included in the audio book.
Download “The Courtship Gift” PDF e-book
The text is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY license:
Credit must be given to the creator.
The audio recordings are licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license:
Credit must be given to the creator (this applies to the author and the performers). Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted. No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.
The cover uses a photo by Nadiya Ploschenko on Unsplash
The artist has meanwhile deleted her unsplash.com account