[3] On 1 December 1971 she was recognised internationally when she appeared as the Countess in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Royal Opera House in London.

[7] Towards the end of her career, Te Kanawa appeared in opera only rarely, preferring to perform in concerts and recitals.

Te Kanawa met Desmond Park on a blind date in London in August 1967, and they married six weeks later at St Patrick's Cathedral, Auckland.

[20] In her teens and early 20s, Te Kanawa was a pop star and entertainer at clubs in New Zealand,[21][failed verification] and regularly appeared in newspapers and magazines.

In 1963, she was runner-up to Malvina Major in the Mobil Song Quest with her performance of "Vissi d'arte" from Puccini's Tosca, and in 1965 she won the same competition.

In 1966, without an audition, she enrolled at the London Opera Centre to study under Vera Rózsa and James Robertson, who reputedly said Te Kanawa lacked a singing technique when she arrived at the school but had a gift for captivating audiences.

Praise for her Idamante in Mozart's Idomeneo led to an offer of a three-year contract as junior principal at the Royal Opera House, where she made her debut as Xenia in Boris Godunov and a Flower Maiden in Wagner's Parsifal in 1970.

[23] She was offered the role of the Countess in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro[22] after an audition of which the conductor, Colin Davis, said, "I couldn't believe my ears.

According to a historian of the Santa Fe company, "It was two of the newcomers who left the audience dazzled: Frederica von Stade as Cherubino and Te Kanawa as the Countess.

"[25] On 1 December 1971 at Covent Garden, Te Kanawa repeated her Santa Fe performance and created an international sensation as the Countess: "with 'Porgi amor' Kiri knocked the place flat.

In 1989, she added Elisabeth de Valois in Verdi's Don Carlos to her repertory at Chicago, and, in 1990, the Countess in Capriccio by Richard Strauss, sung first at San Francisco and with equal success at Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and the Met in 1998.

She was seen and heard around the world in 1981 by an estimated 600 million people when she sang Handel's "Let the bright Seraphim" at the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer.

Generally known as the "operatic version", it starred Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere".

Te Kanawa appeared as a Pennington Great Performers series artist with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra in 2004.

That same year, she played the spoken role of The Duchess of Krakenthorp in Donizetti's La fille du régiment at the Metropolitan Opera, and sang a tango.

In January 2010, Te Kanawa and BBC Radio 2 launched an initiative to find a gifted opera singer of the future.

[46] Following regional auditions of over 600 aspiring opera singers, 40 were invited to attend masterclasses in London with Te Kanawa, mezzo-soprano Anne Howells and conductor Robin Stapleton.

The semi-finalists were accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Martin Yates, Richard Balcombe and Roderick Dunk and their performances were judged by Te Kanawa, Howells, Stapleton and director John Cox.

In a 2003 interview with the Melbourne-based Herald Sun, Te Kanawa criticised the high rate of welfare dependence among the Māori people, angering some of her compatriots.

[47] Te Kanawa revealed her disapproval of operatic pop singers in The New Zealand Herald's Canvas magazine of 23 February 2008, criticizing Hayley Westenra on the eve of her Starlight Symphony concert in the Auckland Domain.

two or three years and they're gone.Her comment was met with backlash from music critics and industry personnels, including producer Gray Bartlett, who discovered Westenra, and Katherine Jenkins via her spokesperson.

[53] In 2007, the event management company Leading Edge sued Te Kanawa for breach of contract after she cancelled a concert with Australian singer John Farnham.

[54] The court found that no contract had been made by the two parties, so Te Kanawa was not liable for damages, but Mittane, the company that employs and manages her, was ordered to reimburse Leading Edge A$130,000 for expenditures already incurred.

[62] She was portrayed as Saint Cecilia on the stained glass window in St Paul's Cathedral, Dunedin, which was unveiled in October 2012.