Kiri Te Kanawa Interview (page: 6 / 9) Beloved Opera Singer	Print Interview

You have been very careful with your voice, and it has held up beautifully. Were you aware as a young singer of the need to conserve your voice?

Kiri Te Kanawa: I'll tell you a story.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I remember there were two wonderful -- and I'm still on the story with you, of course -- two wonderful front-of-house gentlemen who opened the doors for the clients coming in for the performance. They were huge. I mean, they were the hugest men I've ever seen in their big Covent Garden red outfits with the big hat. And they would stand at the front door, and I would slip through there. And they'd let me come through the front of the house rather than going through the stage door. I've never really liked stage doors very much. Because I've always been a bit scary. I don't like going into a dark hall, and particularly here at the Met, I don't like it down there. So I'm always afraid of going through there. Anyway, they let me go through the front of house. And I'd get a lecture every day I'd come through the front of house. "Now, Kiri, you know that singer. Don't you end up like her. Now, she did this and she did that." And these two fingers wagging at me telling me, "Don't you sing like her. Don't you do what she did. You watch it." And then they'd mention the singer's name. And, of course, it was somebody I really, really admired. And I'd get the lecture for years, years and years and years. And I used to enjoy it. And I'd hear about the next singer coming through. "Don't you be like her." Or I was to be like this one. "We like this one. She was fine. She was looking after her career." And so I'd get this lecture from the front-of-house men. It was fascinating. Because those are the people listening there all night. They're at every performance. And they're hearing a voice either going up or going down, or degrading, or having good nights and bad nights, and they would have their assessment the next morning and tell me about it.

What about your singing teachers? Your teacher Vera Rozsa must have been an influence.

Kiri Te Kanawa: Yes, a major one, along with Sir Georg Solti. Because they're both Hungarian, I used to call them the Hungarian mafia. He was always onto me. "Have you bring to Vera?" And then she'd say, "Georg, he won't be liking this bit." And between the two of them, there was this whish-whish-whish, like sword fighting, and I was being killed by the both of them. But I enjoyed every minute of it. It was good for me.

Was she also concerned with protecting your voice and keeping you away from roles that weren't right for your voice?

Kiri Te Kanawa: Totally. And of course, I learned from her. After a while, I knew she wasn't going to allow me to sing a role that wasn't right for me. She wouldn't even coach me on it. So that was it. I wouldn't even bother to take it to her. Or if it was difficult and I had taken the job, sometimes the daggers would come at me. "You stupid girl! How could you say yes to this stupid thing?" She said, "Right now we have to work!" That's the hard grind that is very necessary in this world of opera.

We understand that the conductor Sir Colin Davis was knocked out when he first heard you. Was that when you first started at Covent Garden?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Kiri Te Kanawa: When I first auditioned at Covent Garden, I was going and I was singing for English National Opera. And they didn't want me, or they couldn't place me. So I went back to Covent Garden and I sang all sorts of things like Capuleti e i Montecchi. And then they'd say, "Would you please come back and sing this aria?" So I prepared and I'd sing it. Then they'd ask me to sing another aria, so I'd sing that. And then another one and another one. And after nine auditions, I thought, "Can't they make up their mind?" And at any rate, that was it. So I think after all of that time, they were trying to place what my voice was doing, and then finally decided that I would do these smaller roles, along with doing the Countess. And then from that point on, I stayed at Covent Garden for five years.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

But the most interesting thing about it was I was paid 50 pounds a week. And that was my salary for the Countess and every role that I did for the next several years. I think my wage was 100 pounds a week at the end of the five years. Can you imagine how much it would cost now?

Sounds like they owe you some money!

Kiri Te Kanawa: Fifty pounds a week for the Countess! Two Countesses a week! And do you know I was pleased? I was actually pleased. It wasn't about how much money I was or wasn't getting, it was how much I was learning. I was more than pleased to do that. When I look back, that was my apprenticeship. That's what you do.

For people that are unfamiliar with opera, what is it you find so compelling?

Kiri Te Kanawa: I think it's a sense of the beginning and end. It's something you go into. It's like a journey for the audience. They go through this and come out at the end, and when they leave, they're completely -- hopefully -- satisfied. I think that's what we like to do is complete it.

It's a very complete art form, isn't it? It's like a 3D movie with beautiful music.

Kiri Te Kanawa: Yes, with a glorious orchestra, and sometimes you've got a wonderful chorus like you have in Boccanegra or Otello. It's wonderful.

When you prepare for a big performance, what is your day like?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Kiri Te Kanawa: When I was singing opera, the day was always either a singing lesson or seriously going down to the opera house, wherever I could go, and either working through with an accompanist -- certainly, if it was any Mozart, I'd go through all the recits (recitatives), every single recit -- because those were the ones that were always the trickiest -- and do the whole recit through on the day. Then I'd normally take a singing lesson. If I was in England, I'd take a singing lesson with my singing teacher, then I'd go home, I'd have lunch, then I'd go back into the theater. And that was it. An hour and a half to London and an hour and a half back. I did that twice on performance day. And that's why I never went out to dinners afterwards. I would just go straight home, because another hour and a half back in the car, and I just was ready for bed, because I'm a very early riser. I don't sleep very well, so I'm normally awake by at least 6:00 in the morning. So I don't need to have late nights. I don't enjoy them.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

There must be a tremendous amount of trust in your singing teacher to work with her on the day of the performance. Are you learning new things or just practicing?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Kiri Te Kanawa: It would be vocalizing, tuning in my voice, which is what I tell these students here. They must tune their voice in every day. And then we'd go through the bits in the opera that I was unsure of. There's little corners. I used to call them the corners, or the top and tail, or the edges. And I'd go through those pieces that I was really unsure of. Or certainly tuning. Sometimes, especially in Strauss, the tuning, I didn't like what had happened. Because so many of the scales are really tricky. And trying to fit them in with a chord that seems almost discordant. And you'd have to fit your note in somehow. So I'd work on those with her.

Kiri Te Kanawa Interview, Page: 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9