Natalie Choquette has a rich, honeyed voice, a sense of style that is in a class all of its own, and an inimitable comedic gift. She also loves opera and the operatic style, and wants everyone who comes to see her perform to love it as well.

After a performance like last night's, how can anyone help but be converted? This is an artist who gives her all on the stage, and through her madcap antics and droll interpretations, opens a door to this art form that some people find difficult to penetrate.

Ms Choquette won over her audience convincingly, who, after two encores, also gave her a standing ovation.

This is Ms Choquette's second visit to The Bermuda Festival, and like last year, the programme was made up of short sections which featured famous arias - though unlike last year, which was essentially 'a best of opera', this time she brought forward some less familiar pieces. The opening, for example, included a song by the last Queen of France, Marie-Antoinette - although works by Mozart also figured heavily in this section. It was entitled Marie-Antoinette's Strip Tease, and Ms Choquette arrived on stage gorgeously costumed as the French Queen in layers and layers of fabric and tulle, which were gradually removed by a dress maker as we learned a little bit more about the person under them. While certainly amusing, this was also thought-provoking, as she reveals that her marriage was an arranged one and that it took "Seven long years for my charms to operate." She also described meeting Mozart, and reflecting: "We would have made a fantastic couple - totally vild and vacky!" Gluck's poignant 'J'ai perdu mon Eurydice' from Orph?e et Eurydice was a highlight. Lightening the mood immediately, Ms Choquette followed it by saying: "I almost made my own self cry!"

Finally, down to her last petty coat, she disappeared as the sound of a guillotine dropping filled the theatre.

After that serious moment, it was a relief when Ms Choquette appeared on stage again, this time dressed in a glittering blue and black 1920s evening dress, complete with turban. The programme included many pieces from other genres, including the passion of the Tango, the colour and heat of South America, and a tribute to the legendary Josephine Baker with a mesmerizing rendition of 'J'ai deux amours' - a tremendously evocative performance.

Ms Choquette must have been a New Yorker in a previous life because she's mastered the twang, and has the attitude cracked. Dressed in a vibrant red dress accessorized with huge lemon earrings, she sang Gershwin's 'Summertime' - not an easy piece at all, but her performance was a seemingly effortless choreographed sequence: an exquisite and poignant presentation of the song, as she stuck on enormous fake finger nails and painted her toes!

All the costumes were gorgeous and cleverly designed, but never more so than during the section entitled Harlequin Romance, where she sang from Donizetti's Don Pasquale. A beautiful two-sided Harlequin costume was a cloud of gauze on one side, and a traditional Harlequin on the other. Visuallly, it was remarkable, and so was the performance of this technically difficult music.

As the show drew towards its concluding scenes, Ms Choquette gave her view-point about how badly women are treated in operatic story lines. The outcome of Madam Butterfly, for example, is "totally unacceptable!" This amusing soliloquy was followed by the highlight of the evening, Puccini's 'S? mi chiamano' from La Boh?me. Ms Choquette lured a gentleman onto the stage, and including him in the scene as the artist, had him draw her 'portrait' on an easel while she performed the aria. The audience was rolling in the aisles!

Ms Choquette was accompanied by a superb string quintet who lent not only music but ambience and drama to the performance. Eric Legac?, who played the bass also sang the occasional part, and with aplomb.

Once again, Natalie Choquette has breathed new life into opera in Bermuda.