Divine diva
A huge banner of her face stretches down the Nelson City Council facade, and at least one Nelson car bears her image.
Indeed, as one recent press release proclaimed, %26quot;excitement is building%26quot; about Kiri Te Kanawa and friends performing at Trafalgar Park on Saturday night.
It would be hard not to know who Dame Kiri is and the website for her own foundation places her in the loftiest company: %26quot;On the international opera stage, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa commands the degree of fame and esteem afforded to such New Zealand icons as Sir Edmund Hillary and the All Blacks.%26quot;
But, if you don%26#39;t know, here is a brief rundown.
At a young age she was adopted into a Gisborne family.
In her teens and early 20s she became a popular entertainer around Auckland clubs, while being trained in opera singing as a mezzo-soprano, later moving on to become a soprano.
An estimated 600 million people around the world saw and heard her sing Let the Bright Seraphim at the 1981 wedding of the Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer.
While that marriage was ultimately doomed, Dame Kiri%26#39;s career was anything but, and her accolades and achievements make for a hefty list.
She has performed around the world, including the with Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Paris Opera, the San Francisco Opera, the Vienna State Opera and at the Sydney Opera House.
She was made a Dame in 1982, invested as an Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 1990 and awarded the Order of New Zealand in the 1995 Queen%26#39;s Birthday Honours List.
Honorary degrees have flowed from universities including Cambridge, Dundee, Durham, Oxford, Chicago, Auckland and Waikato. She is an honorary fellow of Somerville College, Oxford, Wolfson College, Cambridge, and Victoria in Wellington.
She won a Grammy Award for best opera recording in 1984 and sang in her last opera, Vanessa, in 2004, although she still records and gives concerts and recitals.
It%26#39;s safe to say Dame Kiri is one of New Zealand%26#39;s top achievers, even though she has lived overseas for about 40 years.
Even now, at the age of 63, she shows no real signs of letting up.
Her New Zealand and Australian agent, Paul Gleeson, says Dame Kiri maintains a regular schedule of about 30 concerts each year.
Since December, she has performed in the Far East and she arrives back in New Zealand this week from Tampa, Florida, after finishing an extensive tour of the United States and Canada.
Gleeson says Dame Kiri has never performed in Nelson and she is looking forward to it.
In recent times she has returned from her home in Britain for shows in Hawke%26#39;s Bay, Wellington, Auckland and Invercargill.
Saturday%26#39;s show is being hyped as Nelson%26#39;s biggest-ever entertainment event. The song programme is being kept under wraps until the day, but will include Micaela%26#39;s aria from Carmen and Somewhere from West Side Story.
Technical director Antony Hodgson has promised a transformation of Trafalgar Park, which started on Monday.
%26quot;We are bringing down the huge stage that is used at Auckland%26#39;s major outdoor events. We have hanging stacks of speakers that will deliver quality sound to every corner of the park, a 40sq m LED super screen for close-ups of the soloists and orchestra from 12 camera positions and a massive rig of intelligent lighting above the stage.%26quot;
A crew of up to 50 technicians are on site this week, rigging the stage, screen and seating.
Forty portable toilets are being added to the park%26#39;s existing 20 flush toilets to cater for an expected 15,000-strong crowd, while about 25 stalls will keep them fed and watered.
When the Nelson Mail talked to Hodgson this week, a crew of five were unloading and assembling seven tonnes of scaffolding that will reach 16m in the air.
Added to that, on Saturday night there will be a hefty crew of caterers, ushers, ticket and programme sellers, sound and lighting technicians, and, most importantly, the orchestra and singers.
Hodgson says the best parking will be in Akersten St, from where people can follow a path near the Maitai River to the venue.
There will also be parking at the Trafalgar Centre, as well as on its outside park, but that is expected to fill up fast.
Gates A and B, at the town end of the park are for allocated seating, while C and D, at the harbour end, are for picnic ticket holders.
While Dame Kiri is by far the most celebrated in the line-up, the rest of the performers provide more than just a passable backing band.
In fact, it has sparked musical director Pete Rainey to exclaim that the combination of Dame Kiri with tenor Simon O%26#39;Neill, bass Jonathan Lemalu, and mezzo Helen Medlyn, all being backed by the Vector Wellington Orchestra and conducted by Marc Taddei, is causing a stir in opera circles.
%26quot;It is tremendously exciting to have a couple of the operatic `young guns%26#39; who are doing so well in the international arena performing alongside New Zealand%26#39;s most revered ever international star.%26quot;
According to Saturday night%26#39;s programme, O%26#39;Neill is one of the most sought-after tenors on the international stage and is a principal artist with the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House, and the Salzburg festival.
Among a long list of achievements and high-flying performances, O%26#39;Neill also won the Nelson Aria competition in 1994.
Lemalu was joint winner of the 2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award and the recipient of the 2002 Royal Philharmonic Society%26#39;s award for Young Artist of the Year.
Like the others, his career has taken him to the top opera houses of the world.
Mezzo Medlyn was a 2002 Arts Foundation of New Zealand laureate and has had a varied and celebrated career that has included classic opera, theatre, cabaret shows, jazz standards and even playing the Mother Superior in the Sound of Music.
Rainey says the programme will open with a %26quot;thrilling karanga%26quot; by Nelson Maori instrument musician Richard Nunns and others. There will be a 16-member chorus from Auckland%26#39;s Opera Factory, as well as early performances from celtic group Cairde and %26quot;rising stars%26quot; The Nancies.
Festival director Annabel Norman says ticket sales are going well but there are still spaces available in all price ranges.
What to expect:
Gates open at 5pm, with pre-show entertainment including Nelson City Brass and the Celtic folk group Cairde. You should be seated at 7.15pm for the 7.30pm show. Commemorative programmes will be available for $10, with $2 from each sale going to the Cancer Society, Nelson. Parking will be available at the Trafalgar Centre carpark off Paru Paru Rd, and off Akersten St at the port. A footpath leads to the footbridge across to Trafalgar Park, from where you can access Gates A and D. There will also be parking in the surrounding areas, such as the Wood, Millers Acre carpark and the Woolworths carpark. Disabled parking is available on Paru Paru Rd opposite the footbridge to Trafalgar Park and there is a drop-off area that will be cordoned off on Trafalgar St with access to both the picnic area (Gates C and D) and allocated seating area in the gold, silver and grandstand areas (Gates A and B). Leisure Travel NZ buses will run from outside the Richmond Mall Queen St carpark entrance from 5pm, 5.30pm, 6pm, 6.30pm and 7pm, stopping at all bus stops along Salisbury Rd, Main Rd Stoke, Annesbrook Drive, Tahunanui, Rocks Rd and Haven Rd. Following the show, buses will continue until all passengers are ferried away. Cost is $6 one way or $10 return. Food vendors will be set up in the picnic area, but people may bring a small picnic of their own providing it doesn%26#39;t take up too much room. As space will be limited, please restrict the amount and size of chillybins and hampers. In the allocated gold, silver and grandstand areas there will be a food and bar service marquee with a selection of food stalls. The fare will include german sausages, gourmet pies and picnic boxes. People may bring a small picnic bag, but space is limited with allocated seating, so no chillybins or hampers are allowed at all in these areas.
All ticket classes are available. They are: Gold Patrons, $120. Open-air allocated theatre seating closest to the stage, with access to corporate hospitality area. Silver Patrons, $90. Open-air allocated theatre seating. West Grandstand, $90. Covered allocated seating in the new grandstand. East Grandstand, $70. Covered bench seating. Picnickers, $15. Designated areas for your own chairs or rugs on the sportsfield and embankment.
Tickets can be bought at www.kiriinnelson.co.nz or Everyman Records, 249 Hardy St, Nelson. To order picnic boxes and for further information, visit www.kiriinnelson.co.nz.
