She used to work as a Crown prosecutor, where her favourite part was giving the closing address to the judge and jury. There could be a real focus on the lessons that could be learned. I'm intrigued by the notion that you could get something positive out of tragic events. "I like the notion of a system where you inquire into the truth of a certain event rather than the adversarial - people arguing in court. Car accidents, for example, can provide an opportunity to examine road safety. Part of her role is to decide, with advice from a pathologist, whether a post-mortem is warranted and to look at ways of preventing similar deaths in the future. It's terrible for the parents but we can try to examine patterns and causes and hopefully some good will come out of looking at these things."
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It is this sensitivity that stops her from talking about specific cases, although she will say they can be "tremendously sad and tragic: the young men that get into their cars full of alcohol and drive, and die needlessly.
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She strives to maintain a professional distance but it would take a hard soul not to feel something for the families affected by sudden or unexplained deaths, of which it is McDowell's job to investigate.
She describes the coronial gig as "intensely interesting". Macbeth is highly charged, dramatic stuff, and while it would be tempting to suggest her day job is equally so, McDowell says they're worlds apart. She has an expressive face, piercing blue eyes that light up at the prospect of slipping into peasant-garb to bring to life several characters, including one of the Bard's scheming witches, an aristocrat and a Scottish refugee. Her office might be drab but her figure-hugging outfit hints at someone who enjoys dressing up after hours. It's my therapy, my way for me to temporarily escape the realities of my day job." "The singing is my passion and I can't imagine living without it. "I couldn't do this role without the singing," she says from behind a desk in her plain coroner's office, decorated with a single photograph of her on stage in The Magic Flute. It's one of Shakespeare's - and Verdi's - most bloodthirsty works.
She's also a professional singer with the New Zealand Opera company, with a choral part in the company's production of Macbeth. She is one of Auckland's three coroners, a job that comes with a hefty workload - the grim reaper does a long shift too. The full-time Auckland coroner and part-time opera singer talks to Rebecca Barry.įor someone who spends a lot of time contemplating death, Morag McDowell packs a lot into life. By day, Morag McDowell investigates death.
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