Australian mezzo Fiona Campbell takes on the Berberian challenge next week with the Berio score, although she tells me that her first influences on the vocal side were Agnes Baltsa, Christa Ludwig and Anne Sofie von Otter "who was just like Dreamland at that time".
Since winning the ABC Young Performer of the Year in 1994 Campbell has attained an impressive status across the Tasman, and says she is "incredibly fortunate to be among a tiny percentage in Australia to make a living as a professional artist, doing what I love".
This year she has sung in Bach's St John Passion with Sydney's Philharmonia Choirs and returns home to play Cherubino in the West Australian Opera's July production of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
She enjoys opera because it "opens up the world of the theatre", she says. "You can connect with audiences on another level.
"Comedy is one of my favourite things. And Figaro is one of the best." As for the Cherubino role, "for a middle-aged woman to play a highly sexed 16-year-old is challenging so it's just as well I'm a fabulous actress."
We both laugh at her tongue-in-cheek self-promo, but the press cuttings assure me that she is one of Australia's top mezzos. I had checked out a YouTube clip of Campbell singing a florid Vivaldi aria and was concerned whether the crutch that she hobbles around on was necessitated by personal injury or was just a theatrical ploy.
It was the latter. "The director wanted my character, a man in the original opera, to be a physically damaged and psychotic woman, which was a great idea."
Another more contemporary venture had her singing James MacMillan's Raising Sparks with the Australia Ensemble and she has fond memories of working with Australian composer Brett Dean, a familiar figure to APO audiences.
"I did Brett's Poems and Prayers at Townsville in 2007," she says. "It was the most difficult thing, and I even had to play cymbals at the same time as singing.
"When I asked Brett why it had to be so hard he just looked at me wide-eyed, and replied, 'Is it?'"
Campbell is determined that no one will be intimidated by Thursday's Berio, as it is "not so much contemporary but rather a set of folksongs that Berio has surrounded by this shimmering orchestration".
She discovered the work in her graduating year, when she was "doing a lot of crazy Peter Maxwell Davies stuff" and "fell in love with it immediately".
Coming back to it after all these years, Campbell looks forward, above all, to "playing with the colours. When I have to be a fisherwoman in Sardinia I'll be harsh, even shouting out," she says. "In another song, from the Auvergne, I can be more lyrical as a young girl. Every piece can take you to another place."
What: Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra
Where and when: Auckland Town Hall, Thursday 8pm
