The last time Korean soprano Sumi Jo was here in 2004, she fainted after her performance at the Esplanade Concert Hall.

'I remember that I enjoyed the food very much - I love spicy food - but I was not ready for the humidity and I suffered a lot. I did lots of encores and afterwards I fainted,' the petite 46-year-old says in her lilting voice to Life! at the Conrad Centennial.

'Also, outside it was hot and inside so cold, and I think somehow that was part of the reason.'

Unsurprisingly, the life of one of the world's most renowned sopranos is stressful. She is famously the last opera star who was discovered by the legendary conductor Herbert von Karajan in 1988, a year before he died.

She is constantly on the road and after her concert here, she will go on to Beijing, Tokyo and Hong Kong as part of her Asian Tour, and then to St Petersburg next month.

Tonight, she performs with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in Sempre Libera (Forever Free), a one-night-only concert that mixes arias from operas by Maurice Ravel and Giuseppe Verdi with songs from musicals by Leonard Bernstein and Frederick Loewe.

'In the first half, we are doing a lot by American composer Bernstein, and even for people who don't understand or have never been to a classical concert before, it is not that difficult and heavy,' she says. 'In the second part, I have tried to put in some French and Italian, very traditional bel canto (a style of brilliant singing), where you can enjoy the human voice. It is like a voyage, travelling through the music and you just sit back and relax.'

She adds that she has also come better prepared for the climate and is very strict about looking after her voice and health in general.

'I am very careful. I do lots of things, like I don't drink cold things, eat chocolate or ice cream, and I don't go out with wet hair. There are a lot of things I have to really care about as I should not be sick for performances,' she says earnestly.

To say that Jo grew up learning discipline is an understatement.

The eldest child and only daughter of an electronics salesman and a housewife in Seoul, she was made to learn the piano, ballet, ice skating, singing and kayagum (a Korean string instrument) from a young age.

Her mother, herself an amateur singer whose musical ambitions were thwarted by the war in the 1950s, wanted her daughter to have the career she could not. It was so stressful for the young Jo that she ran away from home three times though she always returned after a few hours.

'I didn't know where to go. I wanted to go far away from the hard work, but I was not able to do that. If I knew other places or even if I had some money, maybe,' she says with a rueful smile.

'As a kid, practising the piano eight hours a day is very hard and I was not able to understand at the time that to be an artist you have to train, you have to study.'

That said, the soprano, who went to study at the Accademia di Santa Cecelia in Italy at the age of 19 and is now based in Rome, is very close to her mother.

'The discipline was necessary, I agree with that. But kids have to play and parents should not push them too much. My mother now says she does regret that she was too hard on me, but I understand why she did it.'

She returns to Korea at least twice a year, where she frequently gives concerts.

Although her father died two years ago, her mother and two brothers still live there, and she enjoys going to traditional Korean spas with her mother and, of course, eating Korean food.

Back in Italy, the nearest restaurant is a two-hour drive from her house outside of Rome. There, three dogs, a Yorkie and two Italian Shepherds whom she describes fondly as 'my angels' and 'my real babies', keep her company.

Though she was engaged a few years ago, the soprano, who is currently single, says she has decided that 'being engaged with one man is not a good idea'.

She clarifies with a sigh: 'Being an artist, you are engaged with so many people, your fans and followers, and when you are on the stage you are flirting with people. I love flirting with people. I don't like to be engaged with just one person.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Oct 17, 2008.