SINGING IN LONDON

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31079, 7 June 1966, Page 2

SINGING IN LONDON

(Reprinted from “The Times”)

Kiri Te Kanawa makes a possibly unique claim to fame when she says “I may well be the first Maori girl of my generation to work in London.”

She is certainly the first Maori girl to train at the London Opera Centre, where she has just started the first term of a two-year course. If there is any doubt about her singing ability—though this is already renowned in New Zealand and Australia — it is only necessary to add that her European mother’s great uncle was Sir Arthur Sullivan.

But to be the daughter of a Maori father is to be a singer. In the words of one

New Zealander who is writing Kiri’s biography: “The Maoris don’t know how to sing a wrong note.” Kiri comments simply: “Let’s say we’re musi-cal-full stop.” It seems that all Maoris can harmonise without being taught. One New Zealand surgeon has suggested that the construction of the Maori throat is quite different from that of Europeans. “All I know is that it’s wonderful when we get together. We’re always laughing—and singing seems to follow naturally on the laughter,” says Kiri. A Maori group may well “get together” in, of all places, Moscow, according to recent reports in New Zealand. Such a touring party would be bound to Include Inia Te Wlata, the Maori singer who has already made a name for himself Internationally.

For Kiri such a reputation still lies ahead though last year she won the Melbourne “Sun” area contest and a capacity x audience in Wellington last February awarded her a standing ovation as she sang “Now is the Hour” at her farewell concert.

A tall, handsome girl, she bubbles with enthusiasm about the London Opera Centre. “I’m getting the experience of concentrated training here I could never get at home. There’s so much to learn and so much to do.”

Last week Kiri sang Vera Boronel in Menotti’s “The Consul” and Dorabella in “Cosi fan Tutte” before an invited audience at the London Opera Centre under the guidance of Ande Anderson, who is the resident producer at Covent Garden. Dorabella’s sister, Fiordlligi, In "Cosi fan Tutte” was another New Zealander, Malvina Major, winner of the Kathleen Ferrier award. Kiri’s enthusiasm is infectious. “Just seeing Covent Garden when I went there as a member of the audience left me with my mouth open. But then just to be in London and to be. in a way, representing the Maori race, is something which makes me so proud and excited. And, you know, I was born in Gisborne which the English ex-

plorer Captain Cook called Poverty Bay after he’d been attacked there by unfriendly Maoris!”

The sudden change of thought is typical of Kiri Te Kanawa’s lively mind. But then, as Guglielmo sings in “Cosi fan Tutte”, “Ladies have such variations . . .’’