PHEW. We can all come out of hiding now. The force of nature that is Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has left the country.
The imperious presence spent four days in Whanganui, putting Opera School students through a boot camp inside a boot camp. Their first taste of what was to come was the first workshop, where the opera star gave them a good rark up about manners and lack of eye contact when they'd had breakfast together at Collegiate several hours earlier. Personally, I don't know if I would have the nerve to say a friendly "morena" to Dame Kiri over cornflakes, but she expected much more from her pupils.
The admonishment was the start of an extraordinary couple of days for students and Dame Kiri alike. She talked for the first time about why she is so extraordinarily exacting and has a reputation for not suffering fools. Squeezed between the ambitions of her mother and nuns who didn't spare the rod, she had little choice but to be tough. She told students as much. To be special in opera you needed to be tough, as well as talented, hard-working and personable. The latter is at odds with Dame Kiri's reputation here as a bit of a snob. And the funny thing is she hinted even she could be overawed by others when out of her comfort zone. Asked about her role in Downton Abbey, she told the Chronicle: "I can assure everyone that Dame Maggie Smith is charming and down-to-earth - absolutely nothing like a snooty Dowager Countess."
There are probably a number of opera students around New Zealand who feel a bit the same after that rickety start. Opera School director Jonathan Alver has described the two-week-long Wanganui Opera School as a "career nursery".
From a woman who was seen and heard by an estimated 600 million people at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, 20 students in Whanganui last week got the masterclass of a lifetime.
