Please do not confuse American soprano Amy Johnson with British aviation pioneer Amy Johnson (1903-1941). Both take chances, Johnson (UK) with her aviation exploits and Johnson (USA) with her acclaimed operatic performances, in which she gets into the very heart of her characters.

Now, some of these have found their way onto her album, Portrait of an Artist. It is not your standard operatic soprano recital. Amy Johnson choosing nine extremely powerful female characters.

One of these, Katerina from Janáček's Káťa Kabanová is rarely featured, because Janáček did not compose conventional operatic arias, his texts being used more as sung speech. It is welcoming to have Káťa's First Act scene in which she recalls her childhood. This contrasts with the highly-charged atmosphere of Sieglinde's 'Du bist der Lenz' from Wagner's Die Walküre.

There are two extensive Strauss excerpts - Arabella's musing over a young man she had noticed, as she awaits her older suitor Count Elemer, and Salome's lusting over the head of John the Baptist in the final scene of Salome.

Amy Johnson also brings her operatic characters up to date wth Luigia's Prayer from Anton Coppola's (1917-2020) Sacco and Vanzetti and Manuela's 'Nada dura' from Simón Bolívar by Thea Musgrave (b. 1928), an opera she composed in 1995. Verging on American musical theatre are extracts from Séance on a Wet Afternoon by Stephen Schwartz and Sharon's Entrance from Elmer Gantry by Robert Livingston Aldridge.

Throughout, the Budapest-based MAV Symphony Orchestra conducted by Steven Mercurio are well into all the musical styles. Aside from biographical details, the booklet prints the sung texts, with each extract given its place within its opera.