NCH, Dublin
The majority of us can’t remember a time when the list of the world’s greatest sopranos did not include Kiri Te Kanawa. Though the start of her career is now officially dated to her 1971 Covent Garden debut, she was then approaching her late 20s and was already a household name in her native New Zealand.
While opera appearances at New York and Cologne in early 2010 may prove to have been Dame Kiri’s last, the gala concerts continue, much to the approval of fans such as those who packed the National Concert Hall. The programme cushioned eight mostly short solos amid generous orchestral padding. There was additional support in the shape of two Lithuanian proteges of Dame Kiri’s, soprano Lauryna Bendziunaite and mezzo Egle Sidlauskaite.
Both were commanding if a little inflexible in solo numbers from Bizet's Carmen, and joined their mentor with aplomb in the final trio from Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.
If anything put Dame Kiri at a disadvantage on this occasion, it was carrying power. With an RTÉ Concert Orchestra boosted to symphonic strength, conductor Patrik Ringborg made not enough concessions to balance, with unfortunate effects on the emotional thread of Adieu,notre petite table (from Massenet's Manon) and quite obliterating the sense of Gershwin's By Strauss.
To the extent that it was on show, Dame Kiri’s precious instrument seemed remarkably little touched by wear and tear, though there was a tendency for the brighter vowels of her lower octave to overdevelop their edgy, almost menacing quality.
But judging by the two B-flats of Marietta's aria (from Korngold's Die tote Stadt) and the B-natural of Depuis le jour(from Charpentier's Louise), the glories of her upper octave remain almost as beautiful and effortless as ever.
