Dame Kiri’s Red Card

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa is the perfect antidote for World Cup football fever according to Guardian reviewer Sam Woollaston. “There isn’t much that can distract me from the World Cup. But Dame Kiri managed it,” Woollaston writes. “I had What Makes a Great Soprano on during the Greece-Nigeria game the other day. Sani Kaita is sent off, for kicking out at Vasileios Torosidis in a moment of madness. Kaita pulls his shirt up over his head, unable to face the shame and disgrace of single-handedly dashing a nation’s hopes. Kiri Te Kanawa, meanwhile, sings the Countess’s Dove Sono aria from The Marriage of Figaro. Dove sono i bei momenti — ‘Where are they, the beautiful moments?’ The football adds poignancy and urgency to the music documentary, too, which is showing tourist board shots of Te Kanawa’s native New Zealand during her singing. It’s marvellous. No, you’re marvellous. Oh darling. Red card.”