‘It was a method of marketing. If you’d said, “Here’s Pettine-Ann Croul and she sings opera”, they’d say, “Well, so what?”,’ said Don Hutchings. ‘The argument then was, “Maoris can’t sing opera; they don’t have the discipline either with the voice or personally.” Here was a Maori who could sing opera, and that was how we got the door open.’
Vercoe’s colleagues at Reeds wasted no time in capitalising on the breakthrough. Their PR assault had soon put Kiri’s face on the cover of magazines and newspapers across the country. As she became a favourite on television shows like ‘21 And Out’, the bandwagon became unstoppable. Suddenly she was a star. The marketing drive focused on Kiri’s Maori credentials. She was willing to play along with the image, dressing up in the piu piu and other items of ceremonial wear. The approach impressed both sections of the New Zealand community: to the Europeans she was something of an oddity, a Maori capable of singing music hitherto unheard by a mass audience; to the Maori she was a beautiful and aspirational role model, the most enviable ambassador their people had yet produced.
Yet Kiri’s sudden transformation into a Maori singer seemed curious to those who had known her in her formative days. After she had won the Tauranga Aria in May 1964, Susan Smith had seen Nell’s unease at a newspaper headline. ‘It said something like “Maori girl wins aria” and Mrs Te Kanawa was furious,’ she said. ‘Kiri had no interest in Maoridom at all. She didn’t even like to be called Maori.’ This was, in many respects, far from surprising given Tom’s distance from his roots and the racism Kiri had encountered as a child. Nell’s instincts would also have been alive to the danger of Kiri being stuck with a patronising ‘Maori-girl-does-good’ label that might limit her future scope.
There was, however, no mistaking the realignment under way. St Mary’s other Maori star, Hannah Tatana, had helped Kiri out by lending her traditional clothing for her concerts. ‘I had a feathered cloak which she borrowed a couple of times because she didn’t have that sort of thing,’ she said. ‘It’s a heritage Kiri didn’t have.’
If Susan Smith was surprised at Kiri’s sudden embracing of the Maori cause, she was dismayed by the transformation in her personality which she witnessed in the period before and after her breakthrough into pop stardom. Smith’s first glimpse of the shift in Kiri’s attitude had come back at the Tauranga Aria the previous year. As well as working with Kiri, Smith had happily accompanied other St Mary’s girls who approached her for her help. In the run-up to the contest Kiri had asked Smith that, in return for a generous fee, she play exclusively for her. ‘She said, “I want you to play just for me.” I said, “Yes, no problem.”’
Days before the competition another soloist rang asking Smith to play at Tauranga. ‘I said I couldn’t do that, at which point she went back to Sister Mary Leo and all hell let loose,’ recalled Smith. ‘It had never happened before. It caused a lot of strife.’
Kiri’s request merely reflected the new determination she had begun to demonstrate. In the week before Tauranga, she and Smith closeted themselves away at a boarding house. Smith duly played exclusively for Kiri, who, dressed in a shimmering white robe, won the major aria competition and its first prize. Smith remembers ‘bursting into tears of sheer relief’ at the result, while Kiri accepted what was her biggest triumph to date with perfect poise. Kiri gave her pianist a giant panda bear as a token of her thanks. ‘She was very generous to me,’ said Smith, who also received jewellery from Kiri.
For Smith, however, Tauranga marked a watershed. ‘From being a very happy, natural, outgoing girl, she became a very scheming, conniving person.’
To Smith, it seemed Kiri was now willing to use whatever means necessary to succeed. Among her most enthusiastic supporters was a contact Nell had cultivated, H. J. ‘Bill’ Barrett, boss of the ASB bank in Auckland. At a private function attended by Barrett and his wife Shirley, Smith was taken aback when Kiri set off on a story that was clearly less than the truth. ‘I was a bit shocked and horrified, and I remember sitting with her in the car afterwards and I said, “You can’t do that, Kiri, that’s not right.” And she just said, “Look, I know I use him, but if he is too silly to see, who cares?” I thought that was an appalling attitude, really.’
In Smith’s eyes, it was clear that stardom had transformed Kiri when she accompanied Kiri and the Maori tenor Michael McGifford to sing at a raffle evening. In a spirit of fun, McGifford had followed a duet with Kiri with a solo serenade of Smith at the piano. When it came to drawing the evening raffle tickets, Smith rather than Kiri had been asked to select the winning numbers. Smith was stunned at Kiri’s reaction in the car on the way home. ‘I was told that was not the way to behave. I wasn’t to overshadow her,’ she said. ‘You and I would not take a bit of notice of that, but Kiri did. She was furious.’
The end of Kiri’s relationship with Peter Webb represented the final turning point as far as Smith was concerned. It had been soon afterwards, in the car as they travelled from St Mary’s towards Blockhouse Bay one day, that Kiri broke the news that she no longer required her services. Smith understood Kiri’s need for male attention better than most. ‘Afterwards, she didn’t want to be seen with me,’ she said. ‘She felt she needed to be seen with a male accompanist-cum-escort.’ Smith played her final engagements with Kiri soon after the twenty-first birthday party. At the time she was deeply wounded by the rejection. Eventually, however, Smith looked back on her relationship with Kiri with a mixture of philosophy and fondness. ‘I always feel I got the best of Kiri,’ she said.
Kiri’s male accompanist materialised soon enough. A few weeks after her twenty-first Kiri was introduced to a talented Auckland pianist, Brooke Monks. Monks’s father Raymond had built the family business, David Elman Shoes, into a thriving enterprise. Brooke’s mother Berys, known as Billie, was a prominent figure in Auckland’s polite society and a keen supporter of arts and music charities in particular. It had been Billie Monks who engineered the introduction. When Kiri suggested her twenty-one-year-old son become her accompanist at her non-competitive engagements he accepted immediately.
Brooke’s love of the piano had been instilled in him by Billie. His playing style was flamboyant, full of florid embellishments and unashamedly romantic touches. On the dine’n’ dance circuit he soon added a new dimension to Kiri’s performances, his flowing melodies combining perfectly with his partner’s voice on West Side Story numbers like ‘Maria’ and ‘Tonight’ in particular. The looks of affection the duo were soon exchanging across the piano only added to the romantic effect.
According to Brooke it took little time for their musical partnership to develop into something more serious. ‘It didn’t really take very long. We were doing a lot together and it started to change certainly in the first couple of months,’ he recalled.
Brooke was drawn to Kiri’s down-to-earth beauty. ‘She was a very attractive girl and a great personality. She had no airs and graces,’ he recalled. ‘We were very much alike in lots of ways. We both enjoyed life and we were both musical and there was a great opportunity to do things.’ Soon Brooke and Kiri began using their performances as a way of escaping Auckland. ‘We never turned things down. We did so much.’ Country hotels at Rotorua and Wairaki and, in particular, near the hot pools at Waiwera, became their regular romantic hideaways. On occasions they also hid away at the Te Kanawa cabin at Hatepe.
Often they would travel with Kiri’s fellow Maoris, Hannah Tatana and Michael McGifford. Kiri’s career had already begun to eclipse Tatana’s. To her older partner’s eyes, however, her success was a success for the Maori population as a whole.
As she travelled the country with McGifford, Kiri and Brooke, Tatana was unsure of her friend’s new beau. Yet there was no disguising the passion Kiri felt for her flamboyant pianist. The trio had become particular favourites of the Maori Queen, Te-Ata-i-rangi-kaahu. After singing at her home at Ngaruawahia one weekend evening, Tatana and McGifford discovered their colleagues had left before