It was a long way back to the video shop so he watched it anyway. Mostly it bored him, but he enjoyed one of the songs. It was a style he wasn't familiar with so he asked his mum, Maraea Kea, what it was.
When he Googled her answer, opera, the first thing that came up was a clip of Luciano Pavarotti singing his signature aria, Nessum Dorma. And he was hooked instantly.
"I was really taken by his singing. It was an eye-opener. I thought, 'I want to see if I can do that'," Kauwiti said.
He played and re-played the YouTube clip as he tried to master it himself - no mean feat when you're copying the world's most famous opera singer and the words are in Italian - until his mum pounded on the wall to make him stop.
"I kept singing it because it was so cool. My mum told me to shut up and go outside and sing to the cows."
Eventually he plucked up the courage to sing to his English teacher, and then a school assembly. The reaction, now a common one, was tears and a standing ovation.
The same happened when the local Lions club invited him to sing at a Christmas party. When the audience demanded more, he admitted it was the only opera song he knew.
Among those listening was district councillor Sally Macauley. She introduced Kauwiti to Carol Maher, a professional opera singer from the US who now teaches in Kerikeri. Since then, Ms Maher has been honing Kauwiti's vocal technique, as well as teaching him piano, music theory and history, and foreign language skills.
He has sung at a Ratana festival in Brisbane, a Maori Women's Welfare League talent quest in Whakatane and at the 10th anniversary celebrations at Kerikeri's Turner Centre, but Opera Idol was his first serious competition.
Kauwiti said it was "the best experience ever," and would help him prepare for next year's aria competition, but the highlight was being surrounded, for the first time, by other teenagers who love opera.
Most of the other contestants came from big cities and well-to-do backgrounds. Many had been training for years. He doubted anyone of Cook Islands/Ngapuhi descent had entered before.
Kauwiti, now in Year 13, plans to focus solely on singing next year. After that, he wants to study music at university. His dream is to one day travel the world performing opera, but always returning to Northland and offering scholarships to aspiring young Maori and Pacific Island singers.
But most of all he wants to keep sharing his talent and the joy of music.
- Kauwiti was equal third among the 15-18-year-olds at Opera Idol with You Are My Heart's Delight, from the operetta, Land of Smiles, composed by Franz Lehar and made famous by Richard Tauber. Director Sally Sloman described him as "a delightful and well-presented young lad with a promising voice in the very early stages of development."
