Boutique hotel too cool for a dame

Dame Kiri te Kanawa. Photo / Hawke's Bay Today

A new premiere boutique hotel may have been cool enough for Welsh crooner Tom Jones to stay at, but New Zealand's own Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has deemed it a little too "cool" for her vocal chords.

The diva's agents checked out the St Clair Beach Resort before her Dunedin performance last night, but felt the open air atrium outside her room might have exposed her to "whips of cold", according to Otago Festival of the Arts director Nicholas McBryde.

It was all about protecting her voice and "instrument", he said.

Last night, Dame Kiri said she had been coming to Dunedin Town Hall for more than 40 years, and it remained impressive.

"My programme will be exactly the same as I would sing in London, Paris or New York - because Dunedin deserves the best."