ready for her turban
So La Cieca thinks it’s time to declare this officially: Kiri te Kanawa has become a mean old bat. The downbeat diva, most recently in the headlines for her controversial anti-panty policy, has gone and dished Hayley Westenra, who apparently is a New Zealand popera singer. (Well, to be perfectly fair, “apparently” isn’t so accurate a way of putting it. Ms. Westenra’s debut CD currently ranks as “the biggest-selling classical album of the 21st century.” Really, cher public, you should keep La Cieca up to date on stuff like this.)
Anyway, the cranky Kiwi gave an interview to Canvas magazine (yes, again, La Cieca feels like she’s totally in the dark here) where she sniped that 20-year-old Hayley is “…not in my world, she’s never been in it at all.”
Te Kanawa then widened the scope of her outrage, insisting that pop opera performers in general “…are all fake singers, they sing with a microphone. People call them up-and-coming, but they never last. They are the new fakes for the new generation.”
Unfortunately La Cieca was not on hand to eavesdrop on the rest of the interview, but she dearly hopes that Dame Kiri next said something like, “Look at them in the front offices — the masterminds! They took the idols and smashed them — the Fairbanks and the Gilberts, the Valentinos! And who have we got now? Some nobodies!”
Incidentally, Dame Kiri’s next engagement (Tuesday, February 26) is a guest appearance on the New Zealand version of the television show “Dancing with the Stars.”
Pure sensationalism to make the classical music world even more exciting!
But you have to admit there is a certain resentment going on here toward Kiri…she is a gorgeous singer…this is the first time that i did not qualify it by saying “in my opinion”
but Puccini – apart from maybe Mimi – was always a bit beyond her
She sounds wonderful on the Rondine recording.
I think that if you want really intelligent questions in an interview, Rennnnaaaaay should interview Dame Kiri.
I have no idesa who this young Haley girl is (although I love Hayley Mills – remember The Trouble With Angels. I loved that movie. Roz Russell and Gypsy Rose Lee on screen together. But I digress), but she’s recording La Wally’s aria? There was nothing more appropriate for a girl her age to sing? Well, if she’s going to go for it, I say go big. Ritorna Vincitor, La Mamme Morta, and Suicidio!
Kiri is a public figure, it is a public question, she was quite right to give this accurate answer to the public, if the public doesn’t like it, they can learn about music or stop asking questions they’ve already decided.
It seems that some of the cher public are beginning to see the light. Nothing will happen to you if you just call a renowned tenor a big, fat pig. But never, never ask why it should be right for your doyenne to call Dame Kiri a mean old bat while it should be wrong for Dame Kiri to call popera starlets a fake — that will get you banned. It comes close to the questions I love asking — like, if directors can send singers to surgery, why can’t we send directors to lobotomy?
It’s particularly awkward to disagree with our gracious hostess on her own pages. But do just that I must. I think it is very noble of La Cieca to feel that a standard kind response to a question is better than what you believe is the truth. At some point you have to draw the line between what is cordial and what is true. I prefer my old divas to be sincere rather than kind. And I don’t see a downside to her comments PR-wise. I would think most of her audience, like many who have commented here, will just nod their heads in strong approval and let out a sigh of relief that someone of her stature finally said it. I’m sure Hayley is a big girl and she can take it like the victim her managers will advice her to be. Gays, of all people, should be elated since we love ageing sopranos being bitchy towards the young. It’s very ‘All About Eve’ except Kiri is right about them belonging in different worlds. BTW, it doesn’t work the same way the other way around. Does anyone recall 80’s sensation Tiffany as she did her tour of malls across America and said something about Madonna being old and tired? Yeah, that’s what happens when you do that.
Well, Madonna is now old and tired. And she’s always lacked any real talent as an entertainer.
Joyless woman.
If Te Kanawa was so sensitive to ‘pop’ artists, why in the hell did she even entertain performing with that Johmmy Farnham,a well known pop artist (in her neck of the woods) then throw a spat, go to Court and get the contractual arrangements nukked. Can anyone think that her management signed, without consulting her in any way at all? Managements do not sign up for expensive projects without first talking to a artist. She had to know he was a ‘pop’ person’ otherwise she then begs the fact : she is a dumb creature. Her main legal point of objection : Oh! ‘she belatedly, found out that his women fans threw panties at him and she would never countenance appearing with such an artist’. Was she just miffed no one was willing / or going to throw their underwear at her!!!!!!????? The recent comments she made, may be her way of further distancing herself from that recent badly handled ‘Farnham’ debacle. Time is running out for her to be noticed or publicly mentioned. She knows it, too.
One thing that can be said in Te Kanawa’s favour, is that old adage: ‘At least she lit well’.
Any one ready for a revival / rewrite of Webber’s Sunset Boulevard with Te Kanawa. She is now the correct age for proper casting of the role. Too often the various productions in the past failed, due to the lack of ‘flesh creeping’ tense unease, when Norma finally takes her gentleman ‘blow-in’ up the stairs…
Norma could ask and tell young Joe :’Do you want to come upstairs and see my collection…..of panties? All worn by a star, when things were really big; not like all those fake amplified things you see today, trying to fill my shoes.