Dame Kiri in Concert: Montreal 1986 (Full Orchestra)

[maestrob]

In a 1986 concert with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit. Dame Kiri sings arias by Handel, Mozart, Bellini, Gounod, Boito, Puccini and Charpentier.

About 1 hour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_jvLzZzYNM

Her "Depuis le jour..." is to die for, far, far better than her commercially recorded version with Sir Colin Davis.

[Lance]

Always have had a great love for Dame Kiri and her recordings. While I have most of her recordings - I miss anything new from her! I met her once in Ithaca, New York - she was an absolute charmer - and a beauty!

[barney]

Always have had a great love for Dame Kiri and her recordings. While I have most of her recordings - I miss anything new from her! I met her once in Ithaca, New York - she was an absolute charmer - and a beauty!

Wonderful singer. Very imperious personality. I interviewed her once, and she was quite the grande dame. After the article ran in The Age, a reader rang up and said what a lovely writer I was. My deputy told me, "I quickly put her right." Mind you, there's always a few readers who aren't put off by rubbish writing.

[maestrob]

One evening as I was leaving my conducting class with a composer friend who was also studying with me at Juilliard, we happened to cross paths with Dame Kiri (born Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron), on our way across the plaza that connects the Juilliard campus with Lincoln Center. She spotted me, a tall guy in a suit, looking like an executive of some sort (This was when I was running the clothing store in the New York Athletic Club.), and brought her delicate frame to a halt with a questioning look in her eye. We exchanged soft greetings, and I urged her to catch her plane (She was obviously in a hurry!) and we parted ways. She couldn't have been more than 5' 2" or thereabouts, with kind eyes.

This was just about a year after I had watched lose her way with James Levine conducting her in "Porgi amor..." at the MET's Centennial Gala (where I was invited into a box by Kurt Baum), an event which broke my heart. Terrible rumors followed about how Levine had not rehearsed the piece with her before the concert, and that she was absent-minded: all sorts of nonsense.

I've adored her and her singing ever since I heard her voice for the first time in her Mozart LP debut with Sir Colin, and in an underground release of her first performance of Desdemona in the early 1970's.

IMHO, her Marschallin far outclasses Renee Fleming's (not to mention her definitive Arabella for the MET.). Dame Kiri portrays a character with infinite depth and nuance, equaled only by Regine Crespin during my lifetime, and we have a video of Dame Kiri.