1News presenter Melissa Stokes speaks to Dame Kiri Te Kanawa about her famous royal wedding performance.
Often, in quiet moments in the 1News newsroom, reporters, camera operators and producers will chat about the stories they've covered over the years. It inevitably leads to the question: "I wonder what's happened to them now?"
Dr Google can be quite handy in these circumstances, but it got us thinking that it'd be nice to re-visit some of the people that've made the headlines over the years. The stories that gripped us, made us laugh, made us think, the memorable times that have become part of New Zealand's history or legend.
We wanted to know what those people remember of the time, what it was like to be living through the media spotlight and how they look back on the event that made them newsmakers.
We are kicking off the Newsmakers series with a woman, a Dame, a lover of dogs and one of our most successful opera singers - Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and her six minutes in the world's glare as a wedding singer at Prince Charles and Lady Di's wedding in 1981.
A job Dame Kiri says she was just in the right place, right time for.
Dame Kiri is instantly recognisable as, well, Dame Kiri, when we enter her Auckland apartment.
There's no mistaking the fabulously coiffed hair and the face I've seen on the telly for so many years.
She's sitting at a round dining table, flicking through the latest Tatler magazine. She later tells me of her despair when looking at the dress sense of many of the young English nobility, posing with champagne and beer bottles. Her tut tutting makes me correct my posture.
I'm a bit nervous about interviewing Dame Kiri, mainly because people keep asking me if I'm nervous about it.
The 79-year-old is sharp, asking me what questions I have and remarking she hopes I'll have some interesting ones.
Dame Kiri was a busy lady in 1981. Her opera star was rising and she was one of the top singers at the Royal Opera house. Prince Charles was the patron. That year, there was one big event on everyone's calendar.
The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was dubbed the wedding of the century.
While we know now how their story ended, back then the future King's wedding was one of the world's biggest stories.
People were expecting it all: Pomp, ceremony and grandeur.
Dame Kiri was at St Paul's Cathedral from early in the morning, ready to play a six-minute part in proceedings, singing as the couple signed the register.
Dame Kiri insists singing at the wedding was a case of being "in the right place at the right time, right spot, all the stars were aligning and then I was asked to do it".
Though when the phone call came, there was a moment of confusion.
Dame Kiri only knew one Charlie, her driver who took her everywhere in London.
Once the Charlies were sorted, what followed was a test of Dame Kiri's secret keeping ability.
For three months – with royal wedding fever growing and all her friends making plans for the big day – Kiri had to stay silent on her role.
"They just said 'and now you can't say a word'. So, I couldn't tell anybody because if you tell one person you've basically got to shoot them," she said.
She worked full time up to the event, a decision she now describes as the "silliest thing I ever did".
But on the day, in a custom-made designer dress, she stood in the glare of the world's spotlight and sang Handel's Let the Bright Seraphim, thinking about her home country throughout.
"I was so proud that a New Zealander would be at one of the weddings of the century, of our new King that would be, of a beautiful young girl who was going to be his wife and the whole fairytale thing of it," she said.
While many might think this would be a career-defining moment, Dame Kiri says her career was already in full flight at the time – but it made her "slightly more famous".
She ranks being in the centre of the "fairytale" as one of her most memorable performances.
"It was one of those ones where, if you were going to fall off and make a muck of it, that was going to be the time and I didn't."
If you're wondering how the now-King thanked Dame Kiri for singing at the nuptials, there were flowers and gifts.
Dame Kiri said she's received "all sorts of lovely things from him and beautiful letters to be treasured".
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