Opera prima donna Dame Kiri Te Kanawa has reacted rather dismissively to the SuBo phenomenon in an interview in the Radio Times.

As an article in The Daily Mail reveals, the Dame believes Susan Boyle’s achievements are not worth talking about, saying she is ‘not interested’ in talking about Boyle’s success.

‘I’m doing something classical, not whizz-bang. Whizz-bang disappears. It goes ‘whizz’ and then ‘bang’.

”You insult me by even wanting to bring it into this conversation. I’m not interested.’

It’s refreshing to find someone who is unafraid to meet the topic of cross-over classical artists and television song-contest winners achieving success in the same sphere as international classical performers, such as Dame Kiri or Luciano Pavarotti, head-on. Then again, when your career and your vocal instrument are as stratospherically brilliant as Dame Kiri’s, you probably have the right to discourse with such frankness on an industry in which you’ve been a international star since 1968.

She’s not afraid to distinguish between artists such as herself, Renee Fleming and Angela Gherorgiu, and those such as Katherine Jenkins and Andrea Bocelli – the former being performers who sing “glorious, serious, grand opera without microphones. There aren’t many of us.”

Ouch. But true, though.