wide selection

The Kiri Selection
$17.98
There is only a single track on "The Kiri Selection" that didn't come from one of her other releases, and that is "The World You're Coming Into" from Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio. The rest of her songs can also be heard on "Kiri Sings Gershwin," "Come to the Fair - Folk Songs & Ballads," "From Heart to Heart" with Malcolm McNeill, and "Kiri Sings Kern."It's a jumbled mixture but Dame Kiri negotiates the songs with a light, brilliant touch, never bringing too much heavy operatic artillery to bear on what are essentially popular songs. For those of you who are not operatically inclined, you may remember this lovely soprano from the 1981 marriage ceremony of HRH the Prince of Wales to the Lady Diana Spencer. Te Kanawa sang "Let the Bright Seraphim" (and wore a very strange hat).Unlike some sopranos (my chorale director says Dame Joan never sang a consonant throughout her entire career), Kiri is scrupulous about her intonation and you will be able to understand almost every syllable she sings. My personal favorite is her rendition of Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes:" "They said some day you'll find,/ All who love are blind,/ When your heart's on fire,/ you must realize,/ Smoke gets in your eyes." She sings with intense pathos, yet a little tremble of courage. I can just see her sitting in some chic '30s cocktail lounge, head (with that outrageous hat on it) held high while her friends chaff her about her unfaithful love. She reaches up to brush the smoke or tears from her eyes and pretends to laugh away a remark that was much too personal.When Kiri sustains a note, she does something with it. She doesn't just sit on it ��� la Pavrotti and let us admire her beautiful voice. She interprets every nuance of the lyrics, unlike some of my very favorite opera singers who don't cross over into popular music very well, e.g. Domingo, Ramey, Norman, and Dame Joan.

Te Kawana fans, unless you already own all four of the albums mentioned above, this CD is definitely worth your while. Kern and Gershwin enthusiasts will also find interpretations to treasure.

Ice Cream
$0.89

Nature Parks ACADIA New England
$2.99

Great Poems: A Wide Selection of Favorite Poems to Suit Everyone (Visual Factfinder)
$14.95
This beautiful collection of poetry holds a special place in my heart. Some three hundred poems, in a wonderfully illustrated, durably bound book made for browsing, reading and sharing memories.

Various headings are used to organise the poems:

`Love', which naturally includes some poetry by Lord Byron; William Shakespeare's `Sonnet 18'; and 'The Rose of Sharon' from The Song of Songs.

`Events', which includes `The Night Before Christmas' by Clement Clark Moore; `I Sing of Brooks' by Robert Herrick; and `The Oxen' by Thomas Hardy.

`Distant Lands': encompassing `Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley; `Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and `The Soldier' by Rupert Brooke.

Other categories include poems about Home and Work, about War and Heroism, Animals (`The Dalliance of the Eagles' by Walt Whitman; `To a Butterfly' by William Wordsworth; and `The Owl and the Pussy-Cat' by Edward Lear).

There are Children's Poems, and entries under Wit and Humour including:

`I always eat my peas with honey;
I've done it all my life.
They do taste kind of funny
But it keeps them on my knife.'

There are many more poems as well. The opening lines of this particular poem, by Charlotte Bronte, caught my attention:

'Life, believe, is not a dream,
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day;
Sometimes there are clouds of gloom,
But these are transient all;
If the shower will make the roses bloom,
Oh, why lament its fall?'

I recommend this particular collection to those who enjoy eclectic anthologies of poetry.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith