Kiri

The biography of Kiri Te Kanawa, one of the most well-known and well-loved personalities in music, revealing for the first time the dramatic story of her origins, career and marital life.

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa exudes an exoticism, glamour and appeal unmatched by any other diva of her generation. She is the most widely recorded, and most instantly recognisable female face in the world of classical music, yet there are few among her followers who really know the amazing story behind the public figure.

Kiri has brought opera’s most passionate and powerful roles to memorable life. More than any other woman she has been responsible for broadening the appeal of opera and serious music. Kiri: Her Unsung Story charts her remarkable rise from orphanhood and raw prodigy to polished performer; from national celebrity when, at just 22, she left her homeland with hundreds standing on the quayside singing the traditional New Zealand farewell ‘Now is the Hour’, to international icon.

Sydney, La Scala, Covent Garden, the New York Met and her scene-stealing performance at the Prince and Princess of Wales’s wedding – Kiri has risen to the pinnacle of her profession. Of the 700 million watching the royal wedding in 1981, only a handful, who sat 12,000 miles away in the small village of Tokomaru Bay, could appreciate how truly remarkable Kiri’s journey had been. Born Claire Mary Teresa Rawstron 54 years ago, the illegitimate daughter of an Irish immigrant and a Maori, Kiri was adopted when she was six months old. For many years she never knew where she came from or who her real parents were.

The moving and unforgettable story that is her real life is told for the first time. The highs, and the lows – her volatile private life, the backstage fighting, her two miscarriages and her failure to have children, and the eventual break-up of her marriage to Australian mining engineer Desmond Park – are revealed together with the full details of her past, a past Kiri has never truly known until now, yet has come to terms with and triumphed over in a most remarkable way.