Open Features: Kiri Te Kanawa
Peter Wintersgill outlines the career of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa who sang at the wedding in 1981 of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in St. Pauls Cathedral.
Born
6th. March 1944 in Gisborne, New Zealand.
Father
Tom, Maori, truck driver.
Mother
Nell, English descent, very determined, great neice of Arthur Sullivan.
Childhood
Family moved to Auckland when she was 12, entered convent school at 14, started singing lessons with Sister Mary Leo, a renowned singing teacher.
Adolescence
Left school at 16, started course of shorthand and typing, but kept on with her singing lessons. Entered numerous singing contests in New Zealand and Australia.
Adult life
Entered London Opera Centre at 22 in 1966. She was rather lacking in drive and initiative, but mother and her teacchers kept her on her toes. She married Desmond, an engineer in l967. On a trip home she sang for the Queen in l970.
Her success rate in compettions increased, also her appearances in operas. In 1970 she was admitted as a junior principle to the staff at Covent Garden. Her first major role was as the Countess in the Marriage of Figaro at Covent Garden in December 1971 and her Scottish debut was in Otello in April 1972. Her debut at the New York Met was as Desdemona in Otello in 1974 under James Levine, which was a great success, she was presented with a Civic Scroll from the City of New York. Her Paris debut, also in 1974, was in Don Giovanni,under George Solti. Since those early days, she has gone from strength to strength, with rapturous applause and rave notices from critics in centres all over the world.
She has sung with such soloists as Geraint Evans, Placido Domingo, Stuart Burrows, Tito Gobbi, Janet Baker, Boris Christoff, and Benjamin Luxon, and under such conductors as Colin Davis, George Solti, Karl Bohm, Claudio Abbado and Richard Bonynge.
She sang Arabella in the title role of Richard Strauss' opera in 1977. Apart from opera, Kiri also sings lieder and in oratorio, thus she toured Europe in 1977with Claudio Abbado & the Vienna Philharmonic with Strauss Four Best Songs & Mahler's Fourth Symphony. She has also made films and CD's and appeared on television.
The highlight of her career so far was when she sang at the wedding in 1981 of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in St. Pauls Cathedral.
