Dame Kiri has revealed why she's chosen to return to New Zealand. Photo / Jae Frew
Dame Kiri has revealed why she's chosen to return to New Zealand. Photo / Jae Frew
New Zealand's beloved opera legend is thrilled to be back on Kiwi soil and this time she's staying put because of one very special little boy – grandson Luther.
In this country, we're always proud of those of us who experience fame overseas. But we never really expect they will come back to New Zealand because their world becomes bigger than home.
So we could all be forgiven for being delightfully surprised to find that living amongst us again, for good, is none other than the world-famous soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.
She has returned home permanently, a decision she made quickly and for one reason: Her beautiful grandson, three-and-a-half-year-old Luther.
"When Covid kicked in, it did a lot of things for a lot of people," explains Dame Kiri. "It terminated people's lives and it made people more innovative, but, for me, it was all about trying to work out how I was going to visit my grandson. That was my big thing."
She had seen Luther for two Christmases in East Sussex, where she lived, and was planning to spend six months of the year with him before Covid struck.
"Suddenly I couldn't see him for a year and a half. That was a huge thing for me. We had such wonderful Christmases and he was lovely and adorable, and then for a whole year and a half I couldn't see him."
Like most families with loved ones overseas, she has become very good at Zoom and FaceTime, as has Luther, who has learned to say "Grandma" and do high-fives.
"Now I can spend real time with him and watch him. See how he grows, how he learns and how he changes, day to day. I didn't want to miss that."
Dame Kiri says she didn't have a grandmother and so it has become very important for her to be one for Luther.
"I have a very small family and I didn't want him not to have a grandmother, so that was a major factor for moving home to New Zealand. There were a whole lot of other things, but he was my major reason."
Dame Kiri arrived home in March and she and her son, Tom Park, agree it was the right decision. Tom and his partner, Zeera, both work and live in Auckland, and Dame Kiri makes sure she spends time with the family every week.
"I see how happy my son is to have his mum back," she grins delightedly.
Dame Kiri knows that her incredible career took her away from her children and like any working mother, she has regrets about Tom, 42, and her daughter, Antonia, 44, missing out on having her around.
"It was hard. I look back and think, 'Oh, God, what did I do to those poor children? I am so sorry.' But Tom told me, 'Mum, you did the best you could' and now I'm with him here in New Zealand, he forgives me for everything. And Toni says, 'Mum, we had the best holidays and the best of things.'
"I know there was a lot of anger from Tom at a certain time, but now he is very calm and lovely."
Dame Kiri's daughter, Toni, lives in Brisbane and she says her daughter is "a different kettle of fish. She's her own person."
But now, shares Dame Kiri, she wants to make up for some of those absences and be there for Luther as much as she can.
Dame Kiri arrived home in March this year. Photo / Jae Frew
"I'm 77 now and I don't know how many summers I have left. I want those summers to be with Luther."
But while it would be easy to assume that Dame Kiri will be leading a life of retirement at her Bay of Islands home and in Auckland with Luther, she is doing anything but.
Her passion these days is the Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation she set up in 2004 to help young New Zealand opera singers when they start their careers.
Kiri mentors the young singers and the foundation works to support them, but Covid was very bad news for the 18 singers she had been looking after.
"These young people were about to launch into their careers, and each and every one of their contracts were washed away, just like that, like a tidalwave. It was so sad."
Kiri wants to thank all the people who rallied around the foundation in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and helped them find the £800 sterling ($NZ1580) each singer was given per month to keep them going.
"There were so many people who helped out at that time – small charities and small donations to big donations. We had so much support and it did a huge amount to help."
Dame Kiri says she was on Zoom calls from her home in Sussex "morning, noon and night" mentoring her singers for 18 months.
"It was hard work, but now they are all emerging and heading off to perform around the world, which is so heart-warming," she enthuses.
The reason Dame Kiri set up the foundation was so young opera singers from this country did not have to go through what she did when she arrived in London as a young Māori girl trying to make it in the international opera world.
"It was lonely, but I don't regret any of it. All I know now is that what happened to me isn't happening to the new generation, so we've cleared that bit up. And I think that should be the bit that I've left behind, too."
She is also concerned for the mental health of her singers and made sure those who need it get psychological support, because she didn't.
"In my day, we were pressured to do the performances no matter what. If you cancelled, they would ring you up and say, 'Are you sure? Can we just get a doctor to you?' or, 'Could you just do half the show?' You were pushed too hard."
At one point, Dame Kiri says she had a breakdown because of the pressure.
"I fell to pieces. There was too much strain and I blew up. The agents were pushing me, the opera houses were pushing me and I got to the stage where I couldn't do it."
This was in 1974 and Dame Kiri cancelled three months of performances. She went to live in Perth, where her then- husband, Desmond Park, was working.
"I just sat there, which was really quite nice, but I didn't stop singing. I was still learning so that I would have everything I needed for the future."
Dame Kiri is still as beautiful as ever, and sits poised and stylish as she talks. She has a wicked sense of humour and is quick to laugh at herself and others.
I know she has a husband who has joined her to live permanently in New Zealand, but I also knew that getting Dame Kiri to tell me about him would be an uphill struggle.
"Can you tell me anything about your partner?" I ask carefully.
"He's a man," she says and sits back, silent, but grinning from ear to ear.
Then she feels sorry for me."He's lovely and sweet, and we've been together for quite a long time," she says. "But he's very private."
She's returned home to be with her 3-year-old grandson Luther. Photo / Jae Frew
She tells me that he has never been photographed in all the years they have been together.
"Someone will say, 'Let's have a family photo' and I would say, 'Where is he?' and he'd be gone. When I was doing Downton Abbey, someone took a picture and there he was, his back turned to the camera."
A request for privacy is one to be respected in this world of intrusion, but Dame Kiri does tell me that moving to Aotearoa was not a problem for him.
"He's been here many times and loves it here. I would say he is more Kiwi than anything else," she says. "When we made this decision to move home, it was made quite quickly and I did say to him, 'Are you okay with this?' and he was fine. There was no question and that is very important when you have a partner. You can't walk all over your partner and make a decision without them agreeing."
When Dame Kiri talks about her life back in England, which encompassed 50 years of her life and more than 20 years living in her home in East Sussex, you can see she is homesick – for her friends and her home, which was planted out in New Zealand natives.
"We had a pōhutukawa tree, which flowered every summer, the darling thing," she says, eyes welling up with emotion. "And a mānuka tree which flowers ... a beautiful garden."
When I ask about leaving her friends, her hand goes to her heart and she says "Don't talk about it!"
Because of Covid, Dame Kiri left England having not seen her friends for 18 months due to the many lockdowns in place there. Her goodbyes to them were over a fence.
"I had my birthday the night before we left the house and we had to talk through the gate. It was awful. We could see them and they could see us – all my friends and neighbours – and that was how I said goodbye."
When I talked to Dame Kiri, the country was yet to go into level 4 lockdown, but our diva was prophetic in what she had to say next.
"It is hard for people to understand what we went through over in England, but it was awful. Here, everyone seems so lethargic and are taking it easy, which is nice, but you only have to have one case come in and we're all exposed," she says.
"Someone told me the other day that they had decided not to get vaccinated because they thought they could handle it. And I said, 'Then you've also decided not to take a hospital bed, haven't you?' If you're going to risk it, then please don't take the hospital bed.'"
Dame Kiri is fully vaccinated and is looking forward to the time when everyone here is too.
Looking back on an incredible career, Dame Kiri acknowledges that it took her away from her children at times. Photo / Jae Frew
Meanwhile, she and her husband are spending time on her large property in the Bay of Islands, cleaning up dead trees and branches, getting the garden back to normal and restoring their terraces, which are "a mess".
She isn't keen on making plans for the future because of the uncertainty the world is in at the moment.
"I don't know how well I will be, how well my partner will be or my children because we just don't know what will happen."
She says she is also keenly aware that there are other people who need help and we need to think about those people in these times.
"Life does not become easier as you get older," she laughs. "I thought it would be easy when I got to this stage, but it's not!"
Dame Kiri said she was gardening with her husband the other day and when she got to bed, she felt like she had been run over by a truck.
Sadly, Dame Kiri is still waiting for her belongings, including her car, to be cleared off the ports in Auckland.
"I'm wearing my oldest clothes and my cheapest shoes," she laughs. "I won't buy anything because I know what's coming and all my favourite pieces are still sitting down there."
Her beloved fur babies, Pomeranians Nyack, Abbey, Eska and Chenna, all needed to be flown over, vaccinated and quarantined, but are now safely ensconced in the Bay of Islands, even if their sleeping crates are still on the port.
Some of her belongings, however, arrived before her. Dame Kiri's music and some of her performance dresses, including the ensemble she wore to sing at Prince Charles and Lady Diana's wedding in 1981 are all safely installed at Te Papa and the Turnbull Library. The Aotea Centre in Auckland has also named their main theatre after her so she now has a place to stage fundraising concerts if she wants. The Dame Kiri whanāu and history are safely home for good.
I do ask Dame Kiri if she might not get a bit bored downunder, where things are known to go a little slower than the life she may have been used to in England.
"The pace might be slower, but we want to do that, too," she tells. "I never want to get on another flight again. Life should be simpler now and I intend to make it simpler for myself with Luther growing up, so that he grows up with me being part of his life. When he grows older, I want him to have great memories and be able to say, 'I remember my grandmother' in 50 years' time."
