Kiri Te Kanawa Interview

Various places around the Internet are talking about an interview with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa where she talks about how opera singers today are urged to starve themselves. She is against this, saying that opera singing requires fuel.

Opera singing is more like marathon running than it is like runway modeling. If the model can refrain from falling down from the perch of her high heel shoes, she is good. Singing over a large orchestra without a microphone for hours on end, such as Katherine Jenkins does not do, is lots harder. Please note: I am neither quoting nor paraphrasing Dame Kiri.

The interviewer tries to draw her into the Susan Boyle controversy, but she sidesteps it gracefully. Turns out Dame Kiri has a film on YouTube of "I dreamed a dream" just like Susan.


Notice how easy it is to understand the words. In fact, this is Kiri's view count high. Kiri wants to make the point that singing pop songs with a microphone is far easier than opera.

It is necessary to pause at this point for an apology. I intended this blog post to be about blogging about pop singing, thinking I would vow not to post any more films of classical singers, especially Americans, singing pop songs. Then everything went astray. Sorry.

Oh well. I'll be serious some other day.