Word: kanawa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Since 1985, when Leonard Bernstein's 1957 musical West Side Story was released with an operatic cast that included soprano Kiri Te Kanawa and tenor Jose Carreras -- and sold handsomely -- other shows have got the tony treatment on records: Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel (1945) and South Pacific (1949), and Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady (1956). Now, most impressive of all, comes Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's 1927 musical adaptation of Edna Ferber's novel Show Boat...
...Boheme from 1981-82 and his Tosca, for which Rome was rebuilt, two seasons ago -- also have marooned their casts in movie sets. Presto: singing pygmies. Now comes this extravagant Fledermaus with singers who become a backup chorus to the brocade and the woodwork. Rosalinde (Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa) gets lost in the crowd during Orlofsky's drinking party in Act II, and the vengeful Dr. Falke (Baritone Michael Devlin) blends nicely with the patterned wallpaper and the potted ferns...
Musically, the performance is just as diffident. No matter how often heard, the melodic freshets and torrents of Strauss's score should always flow, but under Conductor Jeffrey Tate's charmless time beating, even the famous waltz proves resistible. Te Kanawa displays her shimmering voice to some advantage in the first act, then fades away. As the bubbly chambermaid Adele, Soprano Judith Blegen is unsure of pitch and unsteady of tone, while Baritone Hakan Hagegard inappropriately plays Eisenstein as a staggering buffoon...
...MOST SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE That of Giacomo Puccini and Kiri Te Kanawa; his music and her voice gave A Room with a View the year's loveliest sound track...
...said to live up to her last name. By reputation she is a temperamental prima donna who can be cold or even hostile to colleagues, a master of the brisk nod or, worse, the blank stare. Backstage, Met staffers are still talking about her dustup with Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa during the production of Strauss's Arabella. Battle, it seems, wanted some cuts in the music restored, at which Te Kanawa balked. Heated words were exchanged. Battle claims to be mystified by her fearsome reputation. Says she: "I can't think of an instance that I voiced an opinion that...