parterre box

All of you who said, “Oh, Kiri te Kanawa could never do Norma” are feeling pretty silly right now, aren’t you? Of course, La Cieca doesn’t mean the Bellini druidess, a role the Kiwi songbird never could have mastered even at the peak of her career, whenever that might have been.

No, this Norma is the creepy aging diva who refuses to go away:  “I promise you I’ll never desert you again, because after Der Rosenkavalier we’ll make another opera, and another and another. You see, this is my life.  It always will be.  There’s nothing else – just me and the prompters and those wonderful people out there in the dark…” [NYT]

Two things Dame Kiri te Kanawa doesn’t like to talk about: retirement and knickers. [The Australian]

She’s headlined at the Paris Opera and the Met. She’s sung for kings and queens and for Nelson Riddle. She’s provoked feuds with teenagers. But now Dame Kiri te Kanawa has revealed a hitherto undiscovered talent: fighting crime.

The mayor of a New Zealand city plays recordings of the Kiwi songbird in order to deter vandalism in the local transit hub. “There has been no defacing or damaging of art works and sculptures in the area since the music was switched on,” Mayor Bob Harvey explains, because the wayward youth find Dame Kiri’s singing “bloody hideous.” [via Yahoo Odd News]

The furore in New Zealand over Dame Kiri te Kanawa’s apparent criticism of Kiwi popera divette Hayley Westenra may now be on a downward slope after peaking earlier this weekend. Read more »

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.) Read more »

On April 17, Dame Kiri te Kanawa returns to the scene of… well, not a crime, actually, more like a triumph: that is, her surprise Met debut in Otello way back in 1974. No, she’s not singing, but on April 17 she will make a personal appearance at the Metropolitan Opera Shop, to greet her fans and sign CDs from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm.

The following day, the controversial Kiwi canary will grace this year’s Metropolitan Opera Guild Luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria. The alphabetical list of singers and other colleagues who are scheduled to honor the diva includes Licia Albanese, Martina Arroyo, Harry Bicket, Stephanie Blythe, Russell Braun, Lawrence Brownlee, Barbara Cook, Mignon Dunn, Barbara Frittoli, Massimo Giordano, Maria Guleghina, Marilyn Horne, James Morris, Regina Resnik, Julius Rudel, Beverly Sills, Risë Stevens, Ruth Ann Swenson, and Benita Valente. (Apparently Joann Yockey and Linda Zoghby had prior commitments.)

Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade will do the vocal honors and the program will also include “rare” video clips of the honoree. Tickets to the Luncheon are $250 and $400.

Operatic trailblazer Kiri te Kanawa has won yet another victory for every soprano who doesn’t really feel all that much like singing anyway.

The Kiwi canary testified that it was only after agreeing to appear on a concert program with veteran pop icon John Farnham that she discovered that some of his fans expressed their enthusiasm by throwing their panties onstage.

The diva, noting that Farnham collected the frilly underthings “as a sort of trophy,” sniffed that she would find performing in such a milieu “disrespectful.”

Dame Kiri is pictured at right performing a scene from Mozart’s Don Giovanni with a fellow paragon of operatic decorum, Bryn Terfel.

Dame Kiri perturbed by flying underwear, court told

Underwear tossing a deal breaker for opera star

TE KANAWA PULLED OUT OF CONCERT BECAUSE OF RAUNCHY FANS

Court told of dame’s fear of undie throwers

Dame Kiri got knickers in twist over concerts