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Kiri Te Kanawa: Home and Afar
by Brian Hay
Note: This item is no longer available. It is worth it to track down a used copy though.
Like many I found the path to the world of opera by way of the music of Mozart. Kiri Te Kanawa, on the strength of her performance as Donna Elvira in the Joseph Losey production of Don Giovanni, was the first soprano whose singing literally brought me to tears. Even this pair of untrained ears noted the natural beauty of her voice and the breathtaking range of color shadings she was able to give to it. The way she was able to glide effortlessly (or seemed to anyway) through "Ah chi mi dice mai" left me stunned, moved and speechless. To this day her rendition of that piece is still my favoured one and it's stood up against some stiff competition (the second recording I heard of the piece was Elizabeth Schwarzkopf singing under Carlo Maria Guilini). I became a fan then and have been one since.
That this set contained a complete performance of Mozart's "Exsultate Jubilate" alone made buying it a no-brainer. The piece is one of the most joyous and beautiful works by the youthful Mozart and Dame Kiri's treatment of it is second to none. Mozart preferred solid song structure and subtle forms of expression to bravura coloratura passages, using the last only when the effect would truly serve the music. To this end his music and Kiri Te Kanawa's voice are a perfect match. She has the capacity to deliver coloratura passages beautifully (and does) but thanks to her enormous range of shadings along with love and feel for the music itself delivers a rendition that's better the second time it's heard. That's when all the little treasures Mozart hid in the music begin revealing themselves. Dame Kiri, to her credit, serves them with her voice as opposed to things being the other way around as is so often the case with recording stars.
The rest of this set fares just as well. Dame Kiri loves music and not just one form of it. Her programs always offer both operatic highlights and popular standards. The Lerner/Loewe gem "I Could Have Danced All Night" gets a completely different treatment than in the film but (thanks again to her intuitive musicality) crosses genres well. Her signature song "Pokarekare Ana", as always, is sung beautifully. It's here, without accompaniment from the Orchestra where one understands just how lovely her voice is, and how good she is. The instruments are never missed. The sets have a few surprises. Handel's work is less popular in the operatic repertoire than that of Puccini, Mozart or Verdi but it gets a decent representation here. "Non Disperar" from Julius Ceasar and "Care Selve" from "Atlanta" with their transparent and light scoring common to Baroque opera contrast nicely with the rest of the program. As with everything else (though the assertion may be getting redundant) they are given beautiful and radiant treatment by Dame Kiri. Another surprise is a sort of an "unofficial Easter egg" in the form of "Ch'il bel sogno di Doretta" which immediately follows "Tu, Che di Gel" from Turandot. It's not listed on either cover, nor in the liner notes or even in the chapter listings on the DVD itself but is lovely and shows the full range of this woman's magnificent voice well. Because of this it earns terms like "Easter Egg" or "bonus" rather than "packaging blunder" which is what it probably was. There are other problems with the disc. The sound isn't what it could be. It's far from bad but is not great either. Essentially, it's CD quality (and pretty good CD quality at that) but doesn't stand up with the best of what DVD has to offer. That it's an older recording that was made for television doesn't excuse this. Image (the same label) has a recording of Lohengrin out from the same time period and the quality of the sound there simply leaves this in the dust. Listen to those trombones (for instance) in the Prelude to Act III on a decent set up and you'll hear it. I'm guessing, but the transfer and the bit rates the recording was sampled with are probably at fault. Another is the lack of subtitles. Granted, this set comes from a pair of concerts, not a full blown opera so the subtitles aren't really necessary, but they would have been nice to have.
These are minor complaints though and nothing that prevents the music from winning the day. This is a wonderful set of performances of great music from one of this age's greatest singers and is easily appreciated as such. The end of this set when the credits are running as her rendition of Puccini's "O Mio Babbino Caro" washes over the audience is an exquisite moment. To listen to this and not be touched one would have to be without a heart.
This one is a good one.
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Kiri Te Kanawa
…One of the Great Sopranos of the 20th Century …
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About Kiri Te Kanawa
The Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation
