When international opera star Dame Malvina Major returned to live in Hamilton after an almost 50-year absence, she couldn’t find her way around at first because the city had grown and developed so much. “The growth is not just big,” she says, “it’s humungous.”

Dame Malvina says it’s now time for Hamilton, and the Waikato, to shine, and to make the most of this proud new era. “We are no longer the poor relation. Hamilton is a lovely country city that has the opportunity to be a wonderful cosmopolitan centre in its own right.”

She says the “south of the Bombays” tag, often attached to the Waikato, needs to be forever buried, and she has an absolute ambition to see the region develop to its fullest potential.

One of her passions is ensuring the city has world-class performance venues and she has become involved in the debate over the fate of Hamilton’s flagship Founders Theatre, which is currently closed for safety reasons. The theatre has been the city’s major entertainment venue for more than half a century, but Dame Malvina is backing a proposal for a replacement theatre to be built adjacent to the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts at Waikato University, where she works as a senior fellow in music.

“You need lovely ambience for a theatre,” she says, “and the university grounds will provide that. The Founders site, in the centre of the city, was right when it was built, it was fabulous, but it is no longer appropriate.”

Dame Malvina has a long connection with Waikato stages. She grew up in rural Te Kowhai, in a musical family. She made her first stage appearance with her older siblings when she was a toddler, and sang in country halls, as well as at Founders. She was trained by legendary singing teacher Dame Sister Mary Leo, in Auckland, and won prestigious competitions that led to her stellar worldwide opera career.

Nowadays, she is comfortably settled in her Hamilton home where she has a grand piano, views of the Waikato River, and a new addition to the household in the form of Oscar, a golden retriever puppy.

While she has retired from professional concert performances, she still nurtures young talent. At Waikato University, she has recently led a pilot programme for a post-graduate certificate in opera studies. “It’s been hugely successful, the only programme of its kind in New Zealand.”