The great New Zealand lyric soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is 80 today.
Her talent and charisma carried her from humble origins to the world stage.
Her father was a Māori butcher and her mother the daughter of Irish immigrants. Inconveniently, her father happened to be married to someone else – the daughter of the community minister! Under the circumstance, her mother insisted on giving her up for adoption. Te Kanawa was raised by an indigenous couple and took their surname. Her birthname, from her mother, was Rawstron.
In her teens and early 20s, she started out as a pop singer and an entertainer at clubs. First prize in an opera competition, Mobil Song Quest, in 1965, brought her a grant to study in London. A contemporaneous recording of the “Nuns’ Chorus” from Johann Strauss II’s operetta “Casanova” became New Zealand’s first gold record. Almost as an afterthought, she won the Melbourne Sun Aria Contest in 1966.
That same year, she was accepted without audition into the London Opera Centre. It was remarked that while she lacked technique, she already possessed the ability to captivate an audience. Needless to say, she picked up and polished the technique.
In 1973, she received an OBE for her services to music. She was elevated to a Dame, for her services to opera, in 1982. By then, she was recognized all over the world for having sung Handel’s “Let the Bright Seraphim” at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1981.
It seems almost anticlimactic that her recording of “The Marriage of Figaro,” with Sir Georg Solti conducting, would receive a Grammy Award in 1984. In all, Te Kanawa would be nominated six times. She also appeared on what has become known as the operatic “West Side Story,” singing Maria opposite José Carreras’ Tony, under composer Leonard Bernstein’s direction. That recording was recognized with a Grammy for Best Cast Show Album in 1985.
There followed decades of memorable performances, as Te Kanawa appeared on the stages of most of the world’s major opera houses. In 2009, she announced her retirement from opera, effective the next year. She gave her final recital in 2016.
By then, she had already started giving back, fostering young musicians in New Zealand through the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation, which she established in 2004. She also gave masterclasses and sat as a judge in several singing competitions.
In 2013, she made a guest appearance on “Downton Abbey” as the historical Australian soprano Nellie Melba. In 2021, she moved back to her homeland permanently after having lived in the UK for 55 years. She returned briefly in 2022 as part of the New Zealand delegation at the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
Happy birthday, Dame Kiri, and many happy returns.
An early appearance in the 1966 New Zealand film “Don’t Let It Get You”
Singing Handel at the wedding of Charles and Diana
Decades before singing “O mio babbino caro” on “Downton Abbey,” Te Kanawa received wide exposure through an earlier recording of the aria used in the film “A Room with a View” (1985). Interestingly, both productions employed Maggie Smith as a prim sourpuss.
Kiri on “This Is Your Life”
As the Countess in “The Marriage of Figaro”
As the Marschallin in “Der Rosenkavalier”
As Desdemona
40 years of performances from the BBC archives
