N.Z. singer prepares for debut at ‘Met’

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33453, 7 February 1974, Page 3

N.Z. singer prepares for debut at ‘Met’

N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

WASHINGTON, February 6. The New Zealand opera star, Kiri Te Kanawa, has begun rehearsals in New York with the Metropolitan Opera for her debut at the “Met” in Othello early next month. The Auckland singer says she is enjoying the change from life in London. “They have a great night life here by comparison with London,” she said. “Over here it seems to go on all night — London closes down much earlier. “And you hear all those tales about the dangers of mugging. Well, I’ve been here four days and nobody’s mugged me yet. There’s so many people about in the main streets you’d have to go off down an unlit street by yourself to get into trouble.” Miss Te Kanawa is living

I with another New Zealand girl in a sixteenth floor 'apartment above Broadway. “But even up here you hear the noise of the city. There’s sirens going all through the night. Last night was the first on which I haven’t been woken by them.” She said she felt particularly lucky that she had been nurtured at Covent Garden, which made a particular effort to train young singers.

By comparison, singers had to be professionals when they arrived in the United States. There was not the same time devoted to bringing on young and promising singers. REHEARSAL Yesterday Miss Te Kanawa was unexpectedly called in to her first rehearsal with the whole cast of “Othello.” It was “a bit terrifying” to have to go along in a hurry, she said. But she found that her, previous experiences in the role of “Desdemona” helped considerably — “I got through 0.K.” Miss Te Kanawa is to

make her debut on March 7 and will subsequently appear in two further performances of the opera.