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Rinat Shaham opens the menu and sighs. “What do you think is the healthiest choice?” she asks. “I was going to have just a salad, but it all looks so good.”

Hey, isn't opera the one art where the fat lady still gets to sing?

Oh no, the tiny mezzo-soprano explains. Nowadays, opera singers suffer the same physical scrutiny as Hollywood stars. “I say that with real grief, because I love food,” she admits. “I come from a chubby family, and for me, keeping the weight down is always work.”

Keeping ahead of the competition, meanwhile, is crucial. Gone are the days when all that counted was timbre and pitch. “You can't just stand and sing onstage any more,” she nods. “The audience is exposed to TV and movies and theatre, and the expectations are higher. They want someone who can sing, act – and who looks something like the character being played.”

Born in Haifa, Israel, to a musical family (her dad was a music teacher; her brother, Hagai, is an internationally renowned violinist), Shaham spent her early years rebelling against the classical music that filled her home.

She flirted with punk and thought she might become a hippie. Then she turned 15 and could ignore the power of her voice no longer. Four years of classical training later, she was on a plane to the United States, having secured a prized spot at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music.

Though she sang many Cherubinos (The Marriage of Figaro) and Dorabellas (Cosi Fan Tutte) while still at school and after graduating, it was her 2004 performance as Carmen at England's Glyndebourne opera festival that propelled her into the ranks of most-wanted mezzos.

The British press loved her: “The Israeli mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham takes hold of the title role and never lets go; her tour-de-force performance is unmissable,” The Times said. The Independent called her a “sensation. … [She] uses the music like promises and threats, coaxing, cajoling, insinuating.”

Even without hearing her sing the Seguidilla, it's not hard to see how Shaham might win over an audience. With her long, black, curly hair, kohl-rimmed eyes and sultry voice, she's effortlessly sexy. It can hardly hurt that she counts Carmen as her favourite part.

“There aren't that many roles for my kind of voice,” she explains. “There are lots of trouser roles – written for a woman to play a man – but I don't enjoy those. Maybe it's a little corny, but Carmen is endlessly intriguing to me.”

The character also lets the singer take a walk on the wild side. “She draws out the adventurous side of my personality,” she says, smiling. “I'm a nice, married, logical woman and Carmen … is not. But when I am onstage, I have to feel free to become her and to take on her attitude – that I don't owe anything to anybody. I am free to do what I want: free to love and love until I am tired of it.”

She pauses for us both to breathe. “Carmen is very liberating.”

And Shaham has ample opportunity to let loose: Carmen has become her calling card – the role for which she is in demand worldwide. To some extent, she's already familiar with Vancouver Opera's production of Carmen.

“I have worn this particular costume before – in a previous production of Carmen,” she says, laughing. “It's been worn by a few other Carmens between then and now, so it has to be completely adjusted again for me.”

The threads may be a little tired, but the singer is raring to go. “I'm grateful every morning – not just that I can make my living singing – but that I am able to sing Carmen,” she purrs. “It doesn't feel like I am stuck – I am evolving with Carmen. She and I are changing together.”

But if the performance is constantly developing, the audience is always different, she says. Not just from city to city, but from night to night. “If it's the middle of the week and people are grumpy because they have to go to work the next day, it's very different to Glyndebourne, where they've been happily drinking champagne.

“If it were down to me,” she continues, “before each performance, I would give everyone a glass of champagne. Get them in the mood.”

She scarfs down the remaining scallop on her plate, resigns herself to coffee instead of dessert, and starts looking for sweetener. “Oh, I'll just use the sugar,” she shrugs. “I don't like to be high-maintenance. Not like some singers. I did notice the restaurant is called Diva at the Met,” she adds with a sniff. “But I am not a diva, nor have I ever sung at the Met. So there we are.”

Asked if there is any other information about herself she would like to share, she thinks for a moment, before raising a perfectly coiffed eyebrow. “I am not a virgin.”

Vancouver Opera's Carmen starts Saturday and runs on various dates through Feb. 5, at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre (604-683-0222; vancouveropera.ca).