Ana James has taken on the persona of dozens of women and girls, most with fabulously evocative names like Frasquita, Barbarina, Serpina, Lucia or Silberklang.
Later this year, when the soprano returns to the Sussex countryside to join the Glyndebourne opera house's touring production of Mozart's The Magic Flute, she becomes Pamina.
But at the moment, in New Zealand, she is Gretel, a fairy-tale name even non-opera buffs should recognise, even though she's a 1960s Gretel and definitely not the child imagined two centuries ago by the Brothers Grimm.
James (32) is not only a mistress of disguises; she is almost an international woman of mystery to Dunedin audiences, who have not heard her sing in her home town since 1999, before she moved overseas to further her career.
James returned to New Zealand in 2002 to tour with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra but the programme did not come to Dunedin.
And Dunedin folk may have to hold out for a little longer, unless they are prepared to travel to Wanaka, Timaru or Invercargill this month to see the Michael Hurst-directed production of Hansel and Gretel.
James is disappointed a home-town performance could not be arranged.
She would love to sing in Dunedin, where her parents Bryan and Christine live, and looks forward to an invitation one day.
"I was pretty upset when they [New Zealand Opera] told me we weren't going to Dunedin.
It is something to do with the unavailability of theatres, I believe.
It is a shame," James says in an interview with the Otago Daily Times.
Since becoming a free agent in July last year, James has started to clock up the air miles, although most of her travels are within Europe.
"I am pretty fresh into the whole freelance thing, to be honest.
From college [the Royal College of Music's Benjamin Britten Opera School in London] I went to Covent Garden for a two-year contract and I had two years working non-stop, which of course was fantastic.
"But travelling only started recently. I still do a lot of work in London.
"Most recently, I did some recital work in Japan and after this tour I debut with Glyndebourne, doing my first Pamina.
"Glyndebourne is fabulous, the most revered country opera house in the world.
"They have a festival in the summer and then an autumn festival, which is what I'm doing . . . then it's touring the UK," James says.
Four and a-half years ago, James married Hugo Cheston, an Englishman she met in New Zealand.
He's a property developer, not a singer, James is pleased to say.
"Oh God, no. I couldn't marry another singer. He's normal," she said.
Mr Cheston has taken leave to tour New Zealand with his wife, which she is thrilled about because New Zealand has a special place in their memories and travelling together is not always possible.
The rehearsal phase for Hansel and Gretel was intense, but James has loved it.
Gretel is on stage for almost all of the two-hour show and set designer John Verryt has raked the stage at 45 degrees.
While the imaginative set has had favourable reviews, raked stages are banned in Europe because of physical problems they can cause performers.
James has performed on a raked stage a couple of times before but suffered backaches getting used to the angle.
The problems have been ironed out by a chiropractor and masseuse, and the seven-week tour from Kerikeri to Invercargill is now under way and going without a hitch.
"It's fine now because I am just performing for two hours. The tour is fantastic. I am really proud of it.
"I adored working with Michael Hurst, who was wonderful, really positive and respectful of what we did on stage.
"He has never worked with opera singers before and I think he was expecting us not to do a lot of the physical stuff . . . but we were able to do whatever he wanted," she says.
Having an actor directing an opera happens more frequently these days. Opera singers are more comfortable with it than directors realise, James says.
"It's more difficult for them because they haven't been in the opera world . . . There are some rehearsals for the production and some for the music.
"I think at times [during music rehearsals] he found it a little frustrating. But I also think he is looking forward to doing more.
"We've opened his mind, I hope," James says.
"Hansel and Gretel, at two hours, is actually a short opera. Many go for four."
At the other end of the scale, there's the half-hour opera, which can create bigger dramas backstage.
As Serpina in the 30-minute La Serva Padrona (The Servant Mistress by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi), James had to undergo eight costume changes, because the director's concept was that of a husband and wife experiencing marital difficulties and playing dress-up to enliven their private lives.
"So I was a maid and I was a wealthy woman - you can imagine. It was a very stressful 30 minutes," James says.
Opera costumes are often panned but James survived a harsh review of "ugly opera frocks" by Guardian newspaper blogger Judith Flanders last year.
One of James' mentors, Renee Fleming, of the United States, wore a "big" Vivienne Westwood frock that Flanders said made its entrance five minutes before the singer.
James, on the other hand, wore one of the "most successful outfits" of the season, Flanders said; a simple, black draping number designed by Gavin Douglas and commissioned by the Royal Opera House for its Jette Parker Young Artists Programme summer concert.
James remembers the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme for more than just wearing a nice dress.
It provided her with one of her career highlights so far, the role of Barbarina in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
"It was a very high-profile production with a world-class cast and incredibly exciting.
"And it is now on DVD. That is so fantastic for me," James says.
But she has had some frock shocks and was memorably decked up as the fantastically evil Queen of the Night in a London performance of The Magic Flute.
"I had scary blue makeup on my face and a very strange crinoline skirt wound with fairy lights.
"I had to turn it on and they flashed when I sang. I had to sit down in that, too," James recalls.
Life has been good for James, who has sung with Fleming, Placido Domingo and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, and in 2004 was the inaugural recipient of Dame Kiri's foundation scholarship for emerging young artists.
"She's become a friend and a mentor who I see whenever I can. Just before I came out here, I was up at her place working on The Magic Flute.
"She is such a kind and generous person," James says.
In the future, James hopes to revisit The Marriage of Figaro in the role of Susannah, "a warm, lovely, saucy, fantastic character who has some of the most fantastic music".
"But my dream role is Violetta in La Traviata [by Verdi]. That's every soprano's dream role.
"It has this huge arc throughout the story line. That's what every singer wants.
"And it's an incredibly sad story. A tragic courtesan story.
"And the music is sublime."
Fact file
Ana James (soprano)
Born: Dunedin 1976
Educated: St Hildas Collegiate School; Victoria University (BMus); Manhattan School of Music (MMus); Royal College of Music; Benjamin Britten Opera School (postgraduate diploma in music).
