Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa
a.k.a. Kiri Te Kanawa

CLOSE TO THE HEART
An Interview with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa
New Zealand-born soprano Kiri Te Kanawa has won acclaim since 1971, when she wowed London audiences as the Countess in THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, followed by her stunning performance as Donna Elvira in Joseph Losey's film version of DON GIOVANNI. Considered one of the most accomplished interpreters of the operas of Mozart and Richard Strauss, she is going back to her roots with a delightful CD of MAORI SONGS. Dame Kiri recently chatted with bn.com's associate editor Benjamin Ivry.

barnesandnoble.com: Do these Maori songs have special meaning for you?

Kiri Te Kanawa: My father was of Maori origin, and used to sing this music at home all the time. I learned it from my family at the earliest age. We sing these songs for the everyday occasions of life, and they are very close to the hearts of our people. I feel that the recording is lovingly put together.

bn.com: You sing pop, jazz, and classical music. Do you approach each style differently?

KTK: I treat everything as a folk song, if it has lovely words and an attractive tune. That's important whether the music is by Wagner or by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Take André Previn, who played piano on my jazz album SIDETRACKS, and conducted the orchestra when I recorded the Johann Strauss operetta DIE FLEDERMAUS. When Previn plays the piano, it's clear he's a master at that. It's wonderful just to sit and watch those hands, which don't seem to touch the keys. Whereas in FLEDERMAUS, he has to get the message through an entire orchestra, less directly in a way. He has to persuade the orchestra to bring out his personal view of the music, but at the piano he's quite a different, freer person. That's how I feel about the difference when I perform pop, jazz, or classical music.

bn.com: You've recorded the role of Elvira in Mozart's DON GIOVANNI twice: the first time based on the Royal Opera production, and then later for Joseph Losey's film. How were these experiences different?

KTK: In my first recording, conducted by Colin Davis, I feel I was very inexperienced -- a young Kiri. It wasn't Colin Davis's fault, it was more the recording producer telling me what to do. I felt that the studio recording process makes you stand still too long. I knew that I could be more creative onstage, to state my own case and deliver my own interpretation of the role much more aggressively than in the recording studio. That's what I was able to do under the direction of Joseph Losey for the film version. There was enough concentration on the dramatic aspect of the role, and I think I was getting closer to the real picture I wanted to create of Elvira.

bn.com: You are closely identified with the music of Richard Strauss, in works like THE FOUR LAST SONGS and CAPRICCIO.

KTK: When I perform Strauss, it is as if the music fits me like a glove. My voice seems to lie in a happy area in this music, which is lyrical and passionate at the same time. There have been other sopranos who have been ideal for Strauss, like Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, but I try not to think of them too much. It's too frightening, and I'd end up thinking that they were so much better that there's no point in even trying.

bn.com: Handel has been another of your specialties, including a performance of the aria "Let the Bright Seraphim" at the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

KTK: When I sang on that occasion, I was absolutely rigid with fear. I felt a sort of grayness closing in on me, and wanted just to sing the song and get out of prison, that kind of feeling. The timing had to be so precise, right down to the last minute, and I'm amazed I got through it. I went into shock afterwards, of course.

Later I did more Handel, recording THE SORCERESS with early instruments specialist Christopher Hogwood and then MESSIAH with Georg Solti. Hogwood is very authentically Handelian in his approach, whereas Solti's view of Handel was perhaps more operatic, but valid in that the end product was so beautiful.

bn.com: Having recorded Wagner's TANNHÄUSER and PARSIFAL, do you have any further Wagnerian plans?

KTK: I feel that Wagner is quite the most beautiful music, but there are other voices more appropriate for it than mine. I leave it to them. I enjoy listening to Wagnerian tenors like Siegfried Jerusalem and Jon Vickers, but the orchestra and those glorious choruses are what I like best, especially as conducted by Georg Solti. When I'm alone at home, I really prefer to listen to Wagner's orchestral music rather than any vocal music. I find it illuminating not to have to pay attention to voices in the recordings.

bn.com: One of your first recordings was CARMEN, starring the flamboyant American mezzo-soprano Tatiana Troyanos.

KTK: I was very good friends with Tatiana. She'd visit me often in London and also stay at my cottage in the country, which a girlfriend and I were sharing, and prepare meals for us. It was a precious time. We worked together in Strauss's CAPRICCIO, and no one knew she was ill, but then she died suddenly. She had such talent, and her Octavian in ROSENKAVALIER was extraordinary.

bn.com: More recently, we've lost the legendary tenor Alfredo Kraus, whom you sang with in LA TRAVIATA.

KTK: I admired his work with Maria Callas in TRAVIATA, of course, and he was a gentle, gentle human being and a lovely, wonderful man. There are some nice human beings around, you know, though I'm not sure if there are many of them in New York. Today I saw a man yelling at another in the street and wondered, what's that all about?

Benjamin Ivry