Kimmel Center Blog

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, soprano

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has reigned over the opera world for forty years. In addition to her performances, she also established a foundation and trust fund to guarantee "talented young New Zealand singers and musicians with complete dedication to their art may receive judicious and thoughtful mentoring and support to assist them in realizing their dreams." Tonight's performance with accompanist Warren Jones is part of Dame Kiri's yearlong farewell tour.

Update: the Wolf- Ferrari piece listed on the program was not played during the recital. It was replaced by CILEA "Il sono l'umile andcella"

The encores were :
Alberto Ginastera's The Song of the Olive Tree
Richard Rodney Bennett's Goodbye for Now

Update #2: John Clare's review of last night's performance

Lovely concert, lovely singing, lovely repertoire, lovely hall (my first time in the Kimmel), WONDERFUL accompanist. At 64 years old, Dame Kiri knows precisely how to use her gorgeous instrument to best advantage, husbanding her resources cannily, without letting the audience feel she is being stingy. At an age when many younger singers can only bark, woof and wobble, Kiri’s voice is still clear, smooth, perfectly supported, and seamless from top to bottom, with perfect intonation. The years have been kind to her voice and her looks as well.

She is certainly cool in all the senses of the word, however. One could wish for more passion and guts in her performances. Interestingly, in the middle register, when she was trying to enunciate the words clearly, her voice became pinched and edgy. But at the top (which of course was not all that high last night) and at full volume, the voice is still glorious. The un-programmed Io Sono l’umile Ancella was sung with a purity, line and control that few younger singers will ever match. Few pop or Broadway artists can possibly retain so much of their voice or looks at her age! It is proof that a classical singing technique is the healthiest of all.

Repertoire: The Mozart cantata was a rarity, unlike the Strauss and Duparc songs. Strauss’s songs depend mainly on glorious sound, and less on textual communication, and so they came off best. (I have never heard Strauss's Zueignung sung so fast, but she made it work!) The Duparc and Poulenc songs beg for a smaller hall, however, and the intimate and sophisticated texts were communicated more by visual than by vocal means. Jake Heggie is indeed America’s Great Young Opera Composer, as his opera Dead Man Walking shows. But the Master Class selection made little impression. Its melodic and dramatic content just didn’t do justice to the text and its message. I kept wondering what Mozart or Benjamin Britten would have done with the text.

I found her diction quite indistinct, unfortunately, and with the lights turned low, could not follow the texts. I had never heard her in person before, so I don’t know if her voice has shrunk over the years, or the hall swallowed it up. In any case, I had to strain to hear much of her soft singing. Her few brief spoken announcements were welcome, but virtually inaudible. The Ginastera encore went for nothing, vocally. She was simply charming, pretty, classy, elegant and inaudible. The final encore was much better, as she projected her witty text well enough for us to get the jokes.

It’s a shame one cannot pack 2000 people into an intimate hall where the singer is just a few feet away, and given the current state of economics, there's an unavoidable impetus to present events in halls where you can sell 2000 tickets, even if the artistic product suffers direly. So how about a big screen TV so we can see her face and gestures if we are too far away to see her with our own eyes? (No artificial sound reinforcement however, please! I want to hear the sound, tone and scale of the artist's real voice, not the sound system.)

Here’s another idea –keep the lights turned up enough so the audience can follow the texts. It’s useless to think we will arrive at the hall early enough to memorize the translations, or will take the time to do so, or – least likely of all -- know the original texts well enough not to need them. If people are to enjoy the vocal art, they must understand the words. How about supertitles for recitals as well as opera?

Now for my real rant: the conduct of the audience almost made me sorry I attended! I have had to wait 35 years to hear Kiri live, and then was practically deprived of the experience. Our seats were in Orch. Box. 12, by the way, so I forked out some meaningful money to here this event.

First, there was a photographer taking pictures nearby during the Mozart. I suppose she was authorized, and thank God she was not using a flash, but did she have to use a noisy film camera? Mine has a “museum” mode that takes pictures with no "click" "beep" or flash. Why couldn’t she use one like that? She didn’t even stay for the performance, but walked down the side aisle with noisy clacking shoes, all during the music.

Then our seats were right behind a 4-some who either had never been to a classical music concert, or had heard Kiri so many times that they really didn’t care to hear her again. The “ladies” insisted on commenting throughout the music to each other and to their “gents” and opening candy with crinkly wrappers. One of the two “gents” insisted – during the actual music performances -- on (i) cleaning his glasses by holding them up in the air over his head so I couldn’t see Kiri, (ii) scratching himself all over the upper body, (iii) stretching his arms up in the air, (iv) scratching the back of his “lady friend’s” head, (v) commenting aloud, (vi) grunting and making other clearly audible noises and (vii) applauding before the music was finished. I was ready to offer to buy all their tickets from them if they would just leave. Needless to say my wife would not let me tell the boors to be quiet. We moved to some other seats, but could not get far enough away from them.

I can stand coughers, and sometimes there’s an emergency, or a person has a physical handicap. That’s one thing. People are human. But a concert of classical music is not just an occasion for an up-scale evening with dinner out, fancy clothes, good times, and, oh by the way, there’s some soprano singing. If they thought for two seconds, people would understand that the reason they and the performer come together in that hall at that time is so the audience can PAY ATTENTION to the performance. Disturbing people around them is outrageously inconsiderate.

It’s gotten so bad – everywhere – that concerts should all begin with an announcement that includes not only the customary cell phone/beeper/pager reminder, but also a reminder to keep quiet, don't rattle your programs, and don't open your candy wrappers during the music and please remember your neighbors came to hear the concert, not to hear you!!!

We all know classical music is facing trying times, and bringing in the audiences – new audiences -- seems ever harder. We are delighted just to see bodies in the chairs, especially newcomers and young people, who might be having their first experience of classical music. Hopefully they will come often.

But ..... Can’t we teach respect for the artist and for each other at the same time? Can’t we steer a course between the unapproachable snobby image of classical music (but was it ever really so off-putting?) and the free-for-all audience behavior appropriate to viewing TV, pop concerts and sports.

Does anyone know what address one can use to contact Dame Te Kanawa? My only child is named Kiri, in her honor, and I would love for her to meet the great soprano when we attend her Tampa concert. Much to my delight, my Kiri is studying classical voice in school. Please contact me via my email address~tskrowe@aol.com
Thank you so much!

i have never hearsd her sing but she obviously is a good singer but she looks great!!