Soprano for life

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is profiled in the Guardian’s ‘Portrait of the Artist’ column in which the soprano says opera is sung by performers from “very ordinary backgrounds”. “I’m not an elitist, so I think it must come from the people who go to the opera,” Te Kanawa says. “Perhaps the fact that most of it is sung in a foreign language makes people feel detached from it.” She bemoans the rise in popularity of television show Britain’s Got Talent saying, “Contestants don’t put in the effort we have to, even to get to the first rung of the ladder. Opera is for a lifetime, not just a minute.” Te Kanawa says her favourite museum is Te Papa: “They have a lot of my own artefacts there, including the dress I wore to perform at Prince Charles’ wedding to Diana.”