Possessor of a voice of staggering beauty and a technique that never failed her, Kiri Te Kanawa is one of the most adored sopranos of the last quarter of the 20th century. On stage she cut a beautiful and sympathetic figure; on recordings, tone by tone, she amazed. But more often than not, her performances showed neither great involvement nor substantial intellectual investment, and I cannot recall ever being emotionally touched by anything she sang. Her last-act Desdemona came close–but that’s it.
Well, I wish that this 2-CD set had been able to contradict the above, but it hasn’t–and it’s a poor selection to boot, all dating from after 1984 (the ’90s found her powers waning), and only one featuring her “great” Richard Strauss roles (actually, her Marschallin was gorgeous and she recorded it for EMI, so why not include more than five minutes of it?). A second disc is devoted only to Gershwin, Porter, Kern, “Danny Boy”, “Greensleeves”, and Paul McCartney, et al. Opera lovers who have Callas ringing in their ears singing “La mamma morta”, or have anyone–let alone Callas–singing “Addio del passato” will wonder why Kiri Te Kanawa exists. Newcomers listening to this may think opera is pretty, especially the dreamy if uninterestingly phrased “Depuis le jour”. Elsewhere, the speed at which, say, “Leise, leise” and the aria from Die tote Stadt are taken suggest failing breath control. This is not the best of Kiri Te Kanawa. Even if you adore her, it’s not even close.
