Road to the top

back then, too busy going from one role to the next — the Countess, the Marschallin, Mimi, Arabella. Indeed there is a breezy professionalism to Te Kanawa and only now, she says, does she realise she was never properly guided, and she is determined to do better by her Cardiff Singer proteges.

“I was never nurtured. I remember my friend [American mezzo-soprano] Frederica von Stade saying to me: ‘ You and me, we were just thrown into the bullring.’ And she was right. We just had to survive.”

Part of Te Kanawa’s survival technique was to analyse her strengths scrupulously. “I would like to have been a spinto, rather than a lyric soprano, but I had to settle for what I had and I never tried to take on roles that I knew I couldn’t do.”

This included Wagner. It never suited her, she says, and she found it hard to push against the strings which followed an aria.

There have been many highlights in her career. In 1981, she sang Handel’s Let the Bright Seraphim at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul’s Cathedral and was seen by 600 million people worldwide. I ask whether an opera singer would be granted the same platform today. “Well, at Prince William’s wedding everyone was asking where the wedding singer was. I felt it needed some sort of spark.”

Te Kanawa has achieved a level of fame that is rare for most classical musicians. She is aware of her privileged position and, at the age of 73, retains an air of toughness you often find with people at the top of their profession. Certainly she has had to be tough. She has worked with some hard taskmasters, including Sir George Solti, Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein, who, during the notorious Deutsche Grammophon re-recording of West Side Story in 1984, constantly tore Jose Carreras to shreds for failing to master the complex rhythms.

“Oh,” winces Te Kanawa at the memory. “There he was [Bernstein] with this glass of water that was actually vodka. But, you know, he was a brilliant man and when you’re dealing with brilliance you’ve got to cope with brilliance. He was incredibly demanding but I didn’t mind because he helped me achieve things that I’d never done before. I realised that he’d made my voice sustain a note much longer than I thought I could.”

Today, Te Kanawa lives in Sussex (she has two children with her former husband, Desmond Park) and dedicates much of her time to her foundation, which provides financial and mentoring support for singers from New Zealand. It’s a force for social good and a sign that Te Kanawa has not forgotten where she came from.

“If you know where I started, you’ll know that I’m really not posh,” she says. “I’ve played many queens in my life, but really I was living out a fantasy.” And for a split second, this no-nonsense diva looks rather nostalgic.

At Prince William’s wedding everyone was asking where the wedding singer was. I felt it needed some sort of spark. Kiri Te Kanawa If you know where I started, you’ll know that I’m really not posh. I’ve played many queens in my life, but really I was living out a fantasy. Kiri Te Kanawa