Tag Archives: Kiri Te Kanawa

Q and A With Opera Singer Kiri Te Kanawa

Q and A With Opera Singer Kiri Te Kanawa

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who was presented with the 2017 Gramophone Awards Lifetime Achievement Award last week in London, and who has just announced her retirement from public performance, sat down with the Financial…

Where Teddy Tahu Rhodes Goes to Hide Out

Where Teddy Tahu Rhodes Goes to Hide Out

The “pin-up boy of Australian opera”, New Zealand grand baritone Teddy Tahu Rhodes, famous for his portrayal of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, talks with the Advertiser about how he unwinds and where he loves to…

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa’s angelic voice. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sings with Philharmonia Orchestra, Carl Davis / conductor. Recorded at Barbican Center,…

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa honoured by Royal College of Music

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa honoured by Royal College of Music

The Prince of Wales presented legendary Kiwi soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa with an honorary doctorate at a ceremony at the Royal College of Music. “It’s a great honour to be given such a title…

Downton Appearance

Downton Appearance

World-renowned New Zealand soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is scheduled to appear on the popular British period soap opera, Downton Abbey. Producers of the show announced that Te Kanawa will appear as a guest…

Glowing Gold at Grammys

Glowing Gold at Grammys

New Zealand pop star Kimbra, 22, has won two Grammy Awards for record of the year and best pop duo/group with Australian musician Gotye. “Somebody That I Used To Know” was…

Honouring the Greats

Honouring the Greats

Prince Charles is greeted with a hongi by Bruce Simpson from the Ngati Ranana London Maori Club during a reception at St James’s Palace for prominent New Zealanders, Australians and Papua New Guineans….

Hawaiian Duet

Hawaiian Duet

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performed “a range of songs from the Baroque to Rachmaninoff, accompanied by friend and accompanist, Professor Terence Dennis” in a benefit concert for the Hawaii Opera Theatre in late September….

Once in a Lifetime Chance

Once in a Lifetime Chance

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will give a special one-off concert in Ireland’s Ulster Hall as part of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s in October — with one lucky young singer getting the chance to…

Te Kanawa to Sing in Israel

Te Kanawa to Sing in Israel

“There may be imitators or wannabes, but there is really only one true diva — legendary soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa,” The Jerusalem Post’s David Brinn writes in a profile of the…

Honoured by Opera News

Honoured by Opera News

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa was one of five artists recognised for their international musical achievements at the Opera News Awards held in New York at the famed Plaza Hotel on 17 April. German tenor…

Diva Loves Danny Boy

Diva Loves Danny Boy

Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa is a “sucker” for sentimental Irish ballad Danny Boy. Te Kanawa is one of eight musicians asked by the Los Angeles Times to share their favourite love song in the…

Singer of the World

Singer of the World

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is the new patron of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition following the death of Dame Joan Sutherland last year. Chairman of the jury John Fisher said they…

Displaced in New York

Displaced in New York

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa was amongst those present at the annual Christmas night dinner in the baronial Lincoln Center duplex of Sissy and Max Strauss in New York. Each holiday, more than a hundred…

Record Goldie Sale

Record Goldie Sale

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has sold one of the finest paintings by renowned New Zealand artist Charles Goldie for the record price of $573, at Auckland’s International Art Centre. The oil on canvas, Forty…

Dame Kiri’s Red Card

Dame Kiri’s Red Card

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is the perfect antidote for World Cup football fever according to Guardian reviewer Sam Woollaston. “There isn’t much that can distract me from the World Cup. But Dame Kiri managed…

Birthday at Broward

Birthday at Broward

In late February, Soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performed works by Handel, Debussy, Vivaldi and others at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts, her first performance in the state of Florida in…

Lauded for a lifetime

Lauded for a lifetime

Soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will be presented with a lifetime achievement award at the 11th annual Classical Brits to be held at the Royal Albert Hall on May 13. Dame Kiri joins a…

Teaching top form

Teaching top form

Kiri Te Kanawa, who recently gave a recital at Washington, DC’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, also has a speaking role as the Duchess of Krakenthorp in Donizetti’s comedy The Daughter…

Still the Greatest

Still the Greatest

Adventurer Sir Edmund Hillary is the “greatest living New Zealander” according to the results of a recent Research New Zealand poll. Despite his death in January 2008, Sir Ed was named by 15…

Soprano for life

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…

Grand dame’s swansong

Grand dame’s swansong

After 40 years enthralling audiences the world over, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will give her last operatic performance next April at the Cologne Opera in Germany, playing Marschallin in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier —…

Induction Duets

Induction Duets

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performs at this month’s Hollywood Bowl’s season-opening gala, which will also serve as the soprano’s induction into the Bowl’s Hall of Fame. Te Kanawa spoke candidly with the Los Angeles…

A Classical Reaction

A Classical Reaction

Waitakere City has been using classical music to deter vandals and loitering youth, driving them away from a local transit hub with remarkable success. Bob Harvey, mayor of Waitakere, says there has been no…

With rapturous applause

With rapturous applause

Gisborne-born soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, 64, “came, sang and conquered” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at a Ravinia gala benefit concert. Looking every inch the beauteous diva in a stunning red-and-black ensemble, Te…

Dame Kiri’s festival circuit

Dame Kiri’s festival circuit

Soprano Dame Kiri te Kanawa is to perform at three North American summer music festivals – Washington D.C.’s Wolf Trap, Chicago’s Ravinia and the famous Ontario Elora Festival on July 13. Elora artistic director…

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa: Pokarekare Ana

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa: Pokarekare Ana

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performs Pokakare Ana during the New Zealand millenium celebrations.

Kiri’s American Valedictory

Kiri’s American Valedictory

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performed in Orange County, California, in what is being billed as her North American farewell tour. Michael Rydzynski praised her engaging presence, pure tone and comic touches in a review…

Dame Kiri Begins Farewell

Dame Kiri Begins Farewell

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has launched her farewell tour of North America in Vancouver. Canada’s Globe and Mail ran a feature on Te Kanawa, covering world famous soprano’s career from her fêted debut at…

Kiri Te Kanawa’s Love Duet

Kiri Te Kanawa’s Love Duet

Kiri Te Kanawa sings the Otello love duet with Placido Domingo.

Kiri Te Kanawa: Dove Sono

Kiri Te Kanawa: Dove Sono

Kiri Te Kanawa: Dove Sono

NZ in a Nutshell

NZ in a Nutshell

A travel guide to NZ written for a Tennessee paper offers a brief overview of the country, focussing on geographical features and native flora and fauna. Cultural insight is offered by Travel NZ’s Bruce Lahood, who…

Kiri Vows to Remain a Friend in a High Place

Kiri Vows to Remain a Friend in a High Place

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has announced that she will continue singing despite turning 60 this year – the age at which she has previously said she would retire. Her chief reason is to keep…

No 8 Wired

No 8 Wired

Singapore’s Straits Times focuses on the entrepreneurial spirit driving NZ’s booming science industry. “Over time, the Number 8 wire came to epitomise a culture of adaptability and creativity, a ‘can-do spirit’ of which the Kiwis are…

Songbird flees her cage

Songbird flees her cage

“I’m moving away from opera performance … I like to make a big occasion of it when I sing. I have performed in exotic and marvellous situations in Turkey and Korea, and in the…

Psathas & Kiri

Psathas & Kiri

NZ composer John Psathas and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa provided some of the high points at Manchester’s eclectic “Pulse Festival.” The concert was the climax to a six month exploration of Commonwealth arts entitled…

Third time’s a charm

Third time’s a charm

NZ tenor Benjamin Makisi won the prestigious McDonald’s Operatic Aria in Sydney after making the finals three years running. He intends to put his NZ$41,110 prize money towards enrolment in a European opera studio….

We’re All Royalists Here?

We’re All Royalists Here?

Miss representation? Put that portrait of the Queen back on the lounge wall: “All New Zealanders are royalists, not like the Aussies,” proclaims the Dame (Kiri te Kanawa). Perhaps this is not surprising coming from someone…

Kiri to sing at Palace & Castle

Kiri to sing at Palace & Castle

Opera diva Kiri Te Kanawa will sing at Buckingham Palace June 1 as Queen Elizabeth celebrates her Golden Jubilee party. Taking the stage alongside Kiri will be Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and opera’s latest…

Kiwi Resourcefulness

Kiwi Resourcefulness

The Guardian takes time out from the New Zealand – England cricket series to talk up World Cup preparations: “England are on the way although they have a way to go, but it would be in…

Dame Kiri in Greece

Dame Kiri in Greece

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, “a woman with an exotic beauty and – beyond any doubt – an absolutely stunning voice” who “personifies the modern version of a diva most completely” talks about her roles,…

Difficulty in the holy land

Difficulty in the holy land

Dame Kiri in Israel “to do music”. “I love things that are difficult. I love looking for new arias and presenting them to the public,” said edge voice Dame Kiri.

Knickers name

Knickers name

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang with the late Harry Secombe, who found her name tricky, so re-christened her “Tin Knickers”.

World Without Oz

World Without Oz

If Australia didn’t exist, “Kiri Te Kanawa would be known as La Stupenda,” “New Zealanders would outnumber sheep” and “the pavlova would be indisputably a New Zealand Creation.”

Moving Opera

Moving Opera

Diva Kiri Te Kanawa’s welcome to the millennium was “the first, and one of the relatively few, moving moments among a hailstorm of images bearing down from around the globe during marathon New Year’s…

Still singing

Still singing

Dame Kiri scotches retirement rumours. Her agents are “actively seeking engagements and opportunities well into 21 and beyond”.

Dame Delights

Dame Delights

“Well, little Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is a friend of mine. She’s a little New Zealand singer.” Dame Edna Everage of Australia on her illustrious mate, Kiri.

Dame Kiri Star Attraction at Arts Fundraiser

Dame Kiri Star Attraction at Arts Fundraiser

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and her “velvet voice” joined Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, raising $200,000 for the NAC. The Ottawa Citizen describes her as “one of the world’s great opera stars”.

Dame Kiri at the Meyerson Symphony Centre

Dame Kiri at the Meyerson Symphony Centre

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, star soprano, is appearing in a recital in Dallas. “In recitals it’s a partnership—you and your pianist partner performing for each other. I love that give-and-take, that wonderful feeling of…

Simply the best: Dame Kiri: the Tina Turner of the opera world?

Simply the best: Dame Kiri: the Tina Turner of the opera world?

Dame Kiri talks about her Maori heritage, playing to an audience of 600 million people, her forthcoming concert with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and how long she can keep performing. Interviewing the  world-renowned soprano,…

Free to be a Diva: Kiri Te Kanawa

Free to be a Diva: Kiri Te Kanawa

Kiri Te Kanawa isn’t retiring, she’s just trying to see the world.

New Zealand Puts British-based Honorary Titles to the Sword

New Zealand Puts British-based Honorary Titles to the Sword

New Zealand has scrapped the use of the titles ‘Sir’ and ‘Dame’ in favour of a local system of honours. But those with titles, like the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary and the diva Dame…

Legend Kiri Te Kanawa Opens on Stage in Montreal

Legend Kiri Te Kanawa Opens on Stage in Montreal

Kiri Te Kanawa enjoys almost unique prestige in the public eye. She attracted a VIP crowd (including Prime Minister Jean Cretien) to the Centre Pierre Peladeau.