Even though her voice had matured into a glorious, rounded mezzo, Sister Mary Leo’s lack of praise had done little to ease Kiri’s occasional insecurity about the real depth of her talent. At the semi-finals for the Song Quest in Auckland, Kiri had been convinced her renditions of ‘Come to the Fair’ and ‘She is Far From the Land’ were disasters. Her performance was recorded for transmission on a special radio show days later when the six finalists would be chosen. She could not bear to listen as her voice filled Nell’s bedroom in the early evening broadcast. She had hidden in her own room with pillows over her ears as the names of the six singers chosen to travel to Hamilton were read out. Even the pillows had been unable to drown out the sound of Nell booming ‘You’re in, you’re in’, from the top of the stairs.
Kiri and Tom had spent the day of the radio broadcast trying out a new Simca to replace the battered old Standard Ten. The Simca was more expensive than the Triumph Herald Tom had intended buying. That night, with the prospect of a £300 windfall if she won again in the final in Hamilton, the decision was made to go ahead and buy the more expensive car. After listening to a repeat of the show on the radio, Kiri later recalled, she, Tom and Nell drove the Simca up to the Waitakere Ranges overlooking Auckland. ‘That night all of the streets were sprinkled with diamonds and gold dust,’ Kiri said, looking back sentimentally on the moment.
Kiri was one of two St Mary’s girls to be chosen for the final. Both girls knew Sister Mary Leo expected one of her singers to collect the prize for a third consecutive time, following the successes of Mary O’Brien in 1959 and Patricia Price in 1961. Malvina Major’s colourful, beautifully enunciated singing style made her one of the immediate favourites, especially in her home town. Yet many saw Kiri as an equally likely winner. Despite her youth and relative inexperience, Kiri had channelled her natural personality into an irresistible stage persona. Her ability to strike an instinctive rapport with her audiences had already won her an under twenty-one aria competition in Te Awamutu that year.
It had been at the less serious engagements that her regular accompanist Susan Smith had watched Kiri’s natural appeal begin to blossom. Smith, the daughter of a Blockhouse Bay butcher and another member of the St Mary’s musical circle, had known the Te Kanawa family since childhood. In many ways Kiri remained the same carefree girl she had first seen running amok with her niece Judy. ‘Kiri never had a confidence problem then. It was all a bit of a game,’ said Smith. ‘She wasn’t singing at these engagements because she was thinking “One day I’m going to be a star”, she was just singing because it was a fun thing to do and she did it well. If an audience wanted her to sing another six songs she would. She often told me she’d sing down a coal mine.’
Kiri enjoyed ad-libbing her repertoire. Her carefree attitude only added to the audience’s enchantment. Smith recalls how at one concert Kiri had come over to her and whispered in her ear that she was going to sing ‘The Laughing Song’ from Strauss’s Die Fledermaus. ‘But we haven’t rehearsed that. We don’t know that,’ a panic-stricken Smith whispered back. As the audience watched on the two girls continued their giggled conversation before pressing on with an impromptu version of the song. ‘Halfway through the song, where it goes “Most amusing, ah ha ha ha”, she really burst out laughing. Kiri had a really infectious, throaty laugh,’ Smith recalled. ‘She laughed and laughed and laughed, it was real hysterics. The whole hall just erupted. Soon everybody was laughing.’
When she eventually regained her composure Kiri explained that she was laughing at the conversation she had had with her accompanist. ‘Then she said, “I’ll turn around three times and we’ll do it again, and we’ll sing it properly this time,”’ recalled Smith. The audience sat there simply entranced. ‘Those sorts of things were special and the audience would never have forgotten that. They would have thought, quite rightly, “What a lovely, natural girl.”’
Kiri drove to Hamilton with Tom, Nell, Judy, Nola and Vincent Collins. As they mixed with the judges and officials from Mobil, the Te Kanawas were introduced to the four male singers chosen to make up the final six competitors. Among them was Rodney Macann, a Christchurch bank clerk whose fine bass voice had been polished in the choir of the Baptist church where his parents were staunch members.
During rehearsals at Hamilton’s main music venue, Founders Hall, Macann had been struck by the clarity and power of Kiri’s voice. On the night of the competition itself, however, he witnessed something else. ‘The initial impact in that hall was just electric,’ he recalled. ‘She sang a couple of songs and of course she was very beautiful, but it was this desire to communicate with people that she had which was unique. I’ve never seen anything like it since and I had certainly never seen anything like it at the time.’
For Kiri, however, the tragedy was that her performance was ultimately wasted. The format for the competition involved the judges listening to the performances in a radio booth at the other end of Hamilton. The thunderous applause that accompanied Kiri’s bow to the audience was the only clue the panel would have had of the dazzling performance they had missed. The competition’s main judge that year was James Robertson, a distinguished English musician working with the New Zealand Opera Company at the time. Back in England he was a favourite to be appointed the first director of the soon-to-be-opened adjunct of the Royal Opera House, the London Opera Centre.
Impressed as he had been by Kiri’s creamy voice, Robertson had found Malvina Major the more classical singer at that stage. With the six singers on stage he announced that he had placed Major first with Kiri second. A baritone, Alistair Stokes, was placed third.
As the winners were presented with their cheques and sashes, Kiri could not resist playfully upstaging her rival. Sister Mary Leo’s student Diana Stuart had been playing the cello in the orchestra pit. ‘I remember Kiri taking a handkerchief from one of the male singers and dabbing her eyes,’ she said.
As she watched events in Founders Hall, Stuart had not been surprised at the result. ‘The difference in the two was that between a huge canvas that Kiri had and a small but highly colourful canvas which Malvina had,’ she said. ‘On the night I thought Kiri had wonderful performing potential but the song didn’t do her much of a favour.’ Crucially, unlike Kiri, Malvina had concentrated on singing to the judges. ‘Malvina was not really involved with the audience.’
Even as a distant member of the Sister Mary Leo stable, Stuart knew the shock waves the surprise result would cause at St Mary’s. The result was precisely what the two girls’ teacher wanted. ‘Sister Mary Leo did want Malvina to win because she was ready for it and Kiri wasn’t,’ she said. Nell Te Kanawa, however, would never accept the result. ‘There was rivalry between Kiri and Malvina and I think that was precipitated by Nell. Nell would always ask “Why, why, why?” “Why did somebody beat Kiri?”’
Kiri declared herself overwhelmed with her second place. ‘I don’t think she was in the least bothered,’ said Rodney Macann, who joined Kiri at the post competition party. ‘At that stage she was new on the block and was just pleased to be there.’ Macann found Kiri even more charming than she had been on the Founders Hall stage. ‘She actually said to me afterwards she was disappointed that I hadn’t won.’
Nell, Tom, Judy, Nola and Vincent had decided to head back to Auckland that night. In the absence of her family and her boyfriend, Kiri and Macann soon began monopolising each other’s company. When the formal celebrations finished the party continued in Kiri’s room. She later recalled how her suite was so full she was reduced to sitting in her wardrobe where she sipped lime cordial. For most of the young singers there was no need for anything stronger. ‘We were all pretty high. Some of us were away from home for the first time,’ said Macann. Eventually Kiri, Macann, Malvina and one or two others slipped away from the celebrations and