In March of 1944, Kiri Te Kanawa was born on the North island of New Zealand, and she went on to become one of the most beloved sopranos in the world. She had a voice of exceptional beauty and purity; and she had a technique that was well-nigh unshakable. She was particularly prized in Mozart and Strauss, but she sang a huge variety of music, as the recordings prove. This included “crossover”: Gershwin, Kern, and others.

in manner, she was both aristocratic and down-to-earth, queenly and just-folks. She was the approachable beauty from down Under.

She is now on her farewell tour, and that included New York. On Thursday night, she sang a recital in Carnegie Hall.

When she first appeared, the crowd went wild, screaming their adulation for minutes on end. incidentally, dame Kiri looks gorgeous — still movie-star beautiful. She launched into a well-mixed program, involving German, French, English, and Italian. To begin, she sang a Mozart cantata, one of his Masonic pieces (K. 619). And she was almost shocking in it — shockingly good.

Her voice is smaller than it was, but essentially the same. It occasionally betrays some fragility, but does not break. And she was clean, precise, and pure in her Mozart. Moreover, the freedom in her upper register was extraordinary — total, really. She had no trouble whatsoever in this truly difficult music.

I thought, “Why is this lady retiring?” One seldom hears Mozart this proficient, from singers in their prime.

A particular word about intonation: In the cantata, Dame Kiri’s was spot-on, and it would be all evening long. She was a model of intonation – in the center of the center of the note. She sang two bad notes — a grand total of two — in two hours of singing. One per hour is a pretty impressive rate.

After her Mozart, Dame Kiri sang five Strauss songs, in which she demonstrated her famous poise and lyricism. She faltered just slightly in the second — “Die Nacht” — but very quickly stabilized. She has husbanded her voice, and her technique has given her freshness in her 60s. She should be an example to many. To use familiar singer’s language, she has sung on her interest, not on her principal.

In Strauss’s “Morgen!” she spun a most beautiful line, and demonstrated an extraordinary ability to breathe — to sing long, long phrases. Her accompanist, Warren Jones, sang well in this song too, and in the others. In “Ständchen” he created first-rate shimmers (or rather, Strauss had — he did the service of reproducing them properly).

Something odd happened at the end of this set: Strauss’s “Zueignung” was taken at a very, very fast tempo — a ridiculously fast one. It was barely itself. This was inexplicable, to me.

From there, Dame Kiri continued with three songs of Duparc, which had their wanted mystery and exoticism. The last of the three was “Phidylé,” one of the great songs in the French literature. Dame Kiri sang it with what I can only call the wisdom of years. Getting older doesn’t necessarily mean getting worse: It means, among other things, knowing more.

After intermission, it was some more French music — three beloved songs of Poulenc. “Voyage à Paris” was charming, and ultra-French. “Hôtel” was duly sultry. And “Les chemins de l’amour” was positively delicious.

Then we got to English, a tongue in which Dame Kiri sings with special distinction. Not everyone can shine in his home language, you know. She sang a piece by Jake Heggie, which sets the final monologue from Terrence McNally’s play “Master Class” — this is the play about Maria Callas. In remarks to the audience, Dame Kiri said she wanted to sing something that would be acceptable from a “woman of a certain age.” As if …

In the course of the monologue, the speaker/singer says, “Whether I continue to sing doesn’t matter. Besides, it’s all there in the recordings.” At this, Dame Kiri gave a knowing look, and the audience chuckled appreciatively.

She went on to sing a song of Benjamin Britten, “Evening” — first noting that it comes from a set called “This Way to the Tomb.” More chuckles, and outright guffaws.

The soprano closed this English-language section of her program with one of Copland’s Dickinson songs. In my experience, she is an exceptionally good singer of a very hard and superb song: “Heart, we will forget him.” But she chose another one: “Why do they shut me out of Heaven?” The second line is, “Did I sing too loud?” (a line that Copland repeats). And Dame Kiri’s “loud” notes were magnificent — the breath supporting a sizable sound.

In the realm of Italian, Dame Kiri sang a well-loved Puccini song, “Morire,” and the aria from Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur”: “Io son l’umile ancella.” This is a diva’s favorite aria, about diva-dom.

And then she brought out her special guest: the veteran mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. She had flown in from Vienna at 4 o’clock that afternoon. So the last portion of Dame Kiri’s farewell recital was devoted to duets.

Why did she do this? Why did she call in a partner, a sidekick, for this event? Here we are in the realm of psychology. Different singers, like different people, have different needs. And they handle big, maybe troublesome moments in different ways. When Leontyne Price retired, it was without prior announcement — even after-thefact announcement. She simply sang a recital at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and stopped. No fanfare, no balloons — no nothing.

Dame Kiri and Ms. von Stade — “Flicka” — sang “Ah, guarda, sorella” from Mozart’s “Così fan tutte,” in a jokey, hammy way. This was slightly bizarre and discomforting. Was this part of how Dame Kiri was coping with a farewell recital, in perhaps the world’s most prestigious hall? But I leave such questions to the professionals.

The two women sang a couple of other numbers, then Dame Kiri had the stage for one more piece — “O mio babbino caro” (the aria from Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi”). She sang it beautifully and, as usual, unaffectedly. I would have liked to hear “Come to the Fair” — one of Dame Kiri’s most frequent and appealing encores, and a song identified with her. But “Babbino” was it.

Her public was in full cry — they could have listened all night — but Dame Kiri seemed in a hurry to get off the stage: no wallowing, no tears.

For several decades, a segment of the opera commentariat has been very, very snide about Kiri: She’s so pretty, bland, bloodless, superficial, nicey-nicey — and she sings that schlocky crossover. Blah, blah, blah. This, of course, is baloney. To be sure, Dame Kiri was better at some things than at others — but of whom is this not true? She was a superb singer, who provoked a lot of envy, along with admiration. She was a beautiful, tasteful, cultivated, self-mastered, pure soprano. There is room for such a person in the world.

She said, when talking to the audience, that she’ll be back in this city: “There’s always shopping to do in New York.” But, in all likelihood, she will not be singing. There are the recordings, as she implied. But something good — very good — has gone out of our lives.