Kiri Te Kanawa
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, DBE, ONZ ( born March 6, 1944 in Gisborne as Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron ) is a New Zealand opera singer (soprano ).
Life
Kiri Te Kanawa is a New Zealander with Irish mother and Maori father, who grew up as an adopted child in the family Te Kanawa, in which the father also was Māori, and the mother also of Irish descent. When Sister Mary Leo Kiri Te Kanawa received his first singing lessons in Auckland. A few years later, she won a singing competition in Melbourne, Australia and was then able to travel to study singing in London. She received her first minor role in London in The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In 1969 she sang her first leading role part: the Elena in Gioachino Rossini's La donna del lago. Her debut at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden she gave in 1970 as Xenia in Boris Godunov. Over the next few years, she sang at all the great opera stages of the world. Your Metropolitan Opera debut came in 1974 by the disease of the singer Teresa Stratas concluded. Within just a few hours she had to prepare for the role of Desdemona in Verdi's Otello. At the Salzburg Festival in 1979, she sang the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro conducted by Herbert von Karajan and Bernhard Klee.
Also known as Te Kanawa recital singer is making a name. Her concert repertoire includes songs by Henry Purcell as well as Richard Strauss and Franz Liszt.
At the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, she sang in 1981 in Saint Paul's Cathedral in London.
In 1984 she was also a wider audience beyond the limits of known opera of time, as Leonard Bernstein gave her the role of Mary in his only studio recording of West Side Story. Josep Carreras sang the role of Tony by her side. Bernstein occupied the orchestra with jazz musicians and chose the - in his opinion - the best voices for the roles of musicals. About the Vinyl Recording a watchable documentary was made.
In 1991, she sang the anthem World in Union for Rugby World Cup. The single reached number 4 in the UK charts and # 5 in Ireland. The University of Waikato in 1996 awarded her an honorary doctorate. From the University of Cambridge in 1997, she received an honorary doctorate.
In August 2009, they announced the end of her operatic career. Your last performance she gave on 17 April, 2010 at the Cologne Opera as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. On 4 September 2012 she gave a gala concert in Jaromerice Rokytná / Czech Republic. April 2013 she appeared in a series resumption of Donizetti 's opera La Fille du Régiment as Duchesse de Crakentorp at the Vienna State Opera. She played this role pointed in the same year at the Met in the fourth season of the British TV series Downton Abbey she soon appeared in the guest role of soprano Dame Nellie Melba.