Birthday at Broward

In late February, Soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performed works by Handel, Debussy, Vivaldi and others at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts, her first performance in the state of Florida in 16 years. Te Kanawa, who celebrated her 66th birthday on March 5, attributes her vocal health and professional staying power to the firm hand with which she has guided her own career. “An artist has a world to create,” she says. “One person has to take charge. I was fairly strong and brave.” Her rapid rise, she says, was undergirded by the five years she spent in Covent Garden’s young artist programme. “I was paid only 50 pounds a week but it was worth it. I was well taken care of and prepared for the opportunities that would come my way.” If there is one role that captures her mystique it is Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. She will again portray the aging aristocrat in love with a younger man in April at the Cologne Opera for what may be her operatic swan song. “It is a role I can do at my age,” she says.