The Slipped Disc daily comfort zone (227): Kiri’s glory

The Slipped Disc daily comfort zone (227): Kiri’s glory

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norman lebrecht

November 06, 2020

 

Comments

  • CRMH says:

    The best aria I ever heard her singing at the ROH! My memory is that it was even better than this performance! Perhaps 1991?

  • papageno says:

    I met Kiri after 1992 San Francisco “Capriccio”. Pure class and sweetness. And that voice of liquid silver, my my, had to be heard live to be believed.

  • Tiredofitall says:

    Why do I always get such a warm feeling when I see Dame Kiri? Wonderful artist and exemplary career.

  • Alexander says:

    I also like her famous Greenwich concert, especially “Care Selve”
    PS on 7th of Nov is Joan’s Sutherland birthday, I hope you, Norman, remember

  • Peter Owen says:

    Beautiful. Google translate comes up with ‘As in this brunette hour’ – can any one do better?

  • Richard Cumming-Bruce says:

    It was Kiri’s Countess in Figaro which first lit my opera fuse; and 40 years later I would still say that she had the most beautiful voice I have ever heard live. At times, she made a sound so lovely that I felt that I had forgotten that the human voice could be THAT beautiful until one heard her sing again.

    • BruceB says:

      I had never heard of her when I bought her recording of the Strauss 4 Last Songs with Andrew Davis. (Hadn’t heard the songs before, either; at that time, I only knew “Death & Transfiguration.”) I still remember the quote from some critic or other on the back of the album: “Such a Countess as I have never heard, not in Covent Garden, nor Salzburg nor Vienna…” I thought OK, she’s probably good; I’ll risk it. This was about 1979, maybe 1980.

      Of course, if she was recording for Sony (or Columbia that was, as Thackeray would put it), she had already “made it;” but in subsequent years it was fun to watch her become a huge star and feel like I’d discovered her for myself.

  • papageno says:

    Those of us fortunate to hear Kiri in the flesh will never forget…the most beautiful soprano voice that ever came out of a human throat. Her recordings capture maybe only 50% of that essence.

  • Jo Hammond says:

    I don’t think I’ve ever heard her sing better. She really and truly floats her voice. Amazing. Thanks for putting this on.

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