Awards,
Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award 2017
Sponsored by Presto Classical
Gramophone's Lifetime Achievement (very proudly sponsored by us for the second year running!) is always one of the most emotional episodes in the evening's festivities, but last night it was a particularly poignant affair: the accolade went to the great New Zealand lyric soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who only that morning had formally announced her retirement from performance. (Her last appearance in a major role was in 2010, when she sang the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier at the Cologne Opera, and the past decade has seen her devoting increasing energy to fostering young talent through the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation which she set up in 2004 ‘to assist outstanding young opera-singers and musicians with their international career’).
Presenting the award, the actor and singer Julian Ovenden (who starred opposite Dame Kiri when she portrayed Dame Nellie Melba in a 2013 episode of Downton Abbey, her final televised appearance as a singer) described her as ‘one of the very few singers able to transcend the invisible boundary between classical and popular culture, to bring tears to the eyes of millions whilst being able to blunt the pencil of the sharpest music critic’, going on to declare: ‘what treasures she has bestowed upon our musical life - in short, the musical world owes her a great debt of gratitude’.
A spontaneous standing ovation greeted the soprano as she made her way to the platform to the strains of her recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs. Visibly and audibly moved, Dame Kiri paid tribute to ‘the support of my country, the audiences around the world, and most importantly the sacrifices made by my wonderful parents, without which I would not be here today’, and observed that ‘music is many things – a fine technique, a beautiful voice, and passion. It’s also about team-work and I was privileged to be part of some amazing teams, one of my favourites being right here in London at Covent Garden’.
You can watch the beautiful short video tribute which was screened at the ceremony last night below.
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa - some key recordings
(You can browse her complete available discography here).
''Te Kanawa's richly sensuous approach to these delightful songs is very seductive, especially when the accompaniments by Jeffrey Tate and the ECO are so warmly supportive and the sound so opulent. Her account of the most famous number, 'Baïlèro', must be the most relaxed on record, yet she sustains its repetitions with a sensuous, gentle beauty of line.' (Gramophone Guide)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
'This must be one of the most enjoyable of Dame Kiri’s discs. It deserves to be in the collection of every Straussian or indeed of any Lieder enthusiast. These two artists … seem to gain a new charge of enthusiasm from their work together. That is indubitably the case in their account of the Four Last Songs.' (Gramophone)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Strauss: Die Fledermaus
Kiri te Kanawa (Rosalinde), Edita Gruberova (Adele), Brigitte Fassbaender (Orlofsky); Wiener Philharmoniker & Wiener Staatsopernchor, André Previn
'Te Kanawa emerges as a very positive Straussian heroine, though this time for Johann, not Richard. Her portrait of Rosalinde brings not only gloriously firm, golden sound, but vocal acting which shows her at her happiest and most uninhibited. This is a performance with real star quality.' (Gramophone)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Bernstein: West Side Story
Kiri Te Kanawa, José Carreras, Tatiana Troyanos, Kurt Ollmann, Marilyn Horne, Leonard Bernstein
'Te Kanawa may not be a soprano you'd cast as Maria on stage, yet the beauty of the voice, its combination of richness, delicacy and purity, brings out the musical strengths of Bernstein's inspiration.' (Gramophone Guide)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Verdi: Otello
Luciano Pavarotti (Otello), Kiri Te Kanawa (Desdemona), Leo Nucci (Iago); Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Sir Georg Solti
'Te Kanawa produces consistently sumptuous tone; the Willow Song is glorious.' (Penguin Guide)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Mozart: Così fan tutte
Kiri Te Kanawa (Fiordiligi), Agnes Baltsa (Dorabella), Stuart Burrows (Ferrando), Thomas Allen (Guglielmo), Richard Van Allan (Don Alfonso), Daniela Mazzucato (Despina); Royal Opera House, Colin Davis
'It offers abundant pleasures. Te Kanawa recorded an earlier Fiordiligi, and a later: neither manifests the personality and velvety warmth of tone of show here, and her virtuosity in 'Come Scoglio' is staggering.' (BBC Music Magazine)
Available Formats: 3 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Strauss: Capriccio
Kiri Te Kanawa (Countess), Hakan Hagegård (Count), Uwe Heilmann (Flamand), Olaf Bär (Olivier); Wiener Philharmoniker, Ulf Schirmer
'For many, the set’s desirability will rest on Te Kanawa’s Countess. She may not project the words with the finesse or acuity of a Schwarzkopf, but she injects the role with the right degree of wit, vulnerability and vocal suavity.' (BBC Music Magazine)
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Chris O'Reilly - Chief Executive
