FROM THE ARCHIVES
London calls for Kiri
When Kiri Te Kanawa leaves for England this month, she will take with her the good wishes of a number of people who have enjoyed her performances over the last few months.
For, to quote Kiri, “I’ve been up and down the country like a yo-yo since last September.”
It was September which saw her greatest triumph – first place in the prestigious Sun Aria contest in Melbourne. Kiri can hardly remember having had a really long night’s sleep since then. But she retains her cheerful nature. To keep a lunch date, she parks her car for an hour in a 10-minute space, then roars with laughter when it gets no ticket.
Not that the sight of Kiri, in gingham and knitted linen, clutching on that particular day an enormous candy-trimmed peppermint shepherd’s crook, wouldn’t melt the heart of any traffic officer. The candy had come from Los Angeles and so had Kiri. It was all part of the “rush” which this tall, vivacious part-Maori has been coping with. And which Air New Zealand had complicated by inviting her to sing at the Los Angeles banquet, which marked the opening of their new air service to the States.
“Quite a number of Americans thought I was an Indian,” laughed Kiri. “It was a surprise to discover that there were about 500 Maori in Los Angeles and they are thinking of forming a Maori Club.”
There was one place where nobody thought Kiri was anything but Maori – on the airport tarmac at arrival. Dressed in complete Maori costume, she sang a welcome song to the waiting Americans “with an accompaniment provided by jet planes”.
Her general impressions of the US contain many ideas of bustle and noise.
“Our hotel was like a busy city within a city. There were company Cadillacs to drive us everywhere and every possible service thought of. It made me a bit disgruntled the first few days back in New Zealand, having to do everything myself. We drove on enormous roads called freeways, all complicated and with little friendliness about them, if a road can be said to be friendly. But I think it can. These roads just contain for me a memory of countless accidents – we seemed to see several a day.”
She was startled to discover a Polynesian Tiki House in the middle of Disneyland. “It was all rather fantasy, especially to a real-life Polynesian. Birds and flowers and idols and gods, and they all sang – even the greenery!”
There was one thing about the States which impressed her not at all – the food. She found it rich but tasteless, with one notable exception – cheesecake. This, Kiri ruefully admits, was superb. Ruefully, because an attractive young opera singer has to avoid calorie-laden delicacies.
Kiri has a relaxed grace, a large-eyed smile and the sort of hair which falls out of rollers into an immediately attractive line (but she’ll lift it up with a grin and say, “Look, I’ve got sideburns!”). Best of all, she has an enjoyment in everything she does. And onstage this enjoyment communicates itself to all watching, whether she is singing opera, musical comedy or pop. She sings them all.
Kiri’s experience on TV, stage, concert, records and films has run the gamut of just about every kind of music written for the female voice, from Puccini with full symphony orchestra to unaccompanied Maori folk songs.
Recently, she went back to her hometown of Gisborne, rode with the mayor through the town in an open car so the people could farewell her, then sang pop songs at the Beach Carnival. From there, she went off to sing classics with an orchestra, then rushed to record and film her sequence in the film Don’t Let it Get You.
Some years ago, conductor James Robertson remarked of Kiri that she was a “born entertainer”. The Auckland Star newspaper dubbed her “Miss Entertainment 1965.” Even the month of January was no holiday for this songbird. She had several TV programmes to film for showing later in the year, an LP record to finish off and the photos for its cover, and a gathering in Te Kuiti to attend “for a farewell hooley”.
And now London beckons. She will spend a year there to “see if I like it”, then possibly go to Italy.
“I’ll be studying serious music, but I like the lighter things. I will sing them from time to time.”
In the field of serious music, she is as yet untried. She has won competitions by singing one aria, but she has sung no complete performance of opera. Nor has she sung any oratorio and very little recital. She has sung isolated items with orchestra, but never a full musical work, and apart from chorus line, she has not played a part in a musical.
It is a challenge and Kiri knows it. “The road in London will undoubtedly be hard. But singing is work I love, so the more I have work, the more I ought to love it.”
In the years that come, no doubt there will be changes – her singing style, her performing technique, perhaps. But one thing won’t change – “My name. I’ve heard that Europeans have difficulty understanding the Maori Te and they think it is an initial in the middle of your name. Well, I might join mine up and become Kiri Tekanawa, but I’ll never drop it.
“I like to live busily. I want to do all the things I should do... plus a few I shouldn’t. Then when I reach 60, there’ll be only one thing I want to do – flake out completely!”