Opera diva Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will be the star of next year's Commonwealth Games opening ceremony.

The games organisers have secured the New Zealand born soprano, who performed at the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, for the March 15 spectacular at the MCG, The Herald Sun reported.

A capacity crowd of 80,000 is expected to pack the stadium for the ceremony and about 8,000 tickets, fetching up to $590 each, remain unsold, the paper said.

"All we can say is that the 81,000 spectators and hundreds of millions of viewers around the world are in for an unforgettable opening," Games chief executive John Harnden told the paper.

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