The Limelight Recording of the Month for March comes from one of the most exciting singers on the circuit. Not only is French-Danish soprano Elsa Dreisig blessed with a beautiful and flexible instrument, she’s a fearless stage animal and versatile to boot. All of those qualities are amply demonstrated on Invocation, an imaginatively programmed album of arias ranging from Wagner, Verdi and Puccini to Gounod, Bizet and Janáček.

Clive Paget caught up with the in-demand and refreshingly thoughtful artist to talk repertoire, the vicarious pleasures of singing in your native tongue and how to hold your nerve in the recording studio.

This is a slightly facetious question, but have you always been able to sing anything?

[laughs] No. No, no. I am really not able to sing everything, and I’m very frustrated because I wish I could. I wish I could be like Callas and just choose today I am a coloratura and tomorrow I’m a dramatic soprano. This is quite a dream of mine, but, well, it’s not what is happening. But I love to challenge myself, that’s for sure. I have always listened to my heart and sung the things that make my heart sing, not just things...