Interview: Lisa Milne - Signet Library concert is Milne's homecoming

IT HAS been some time since the hugely talented soprano Lisa Milne graced Scotland's concert platforms with anything more than a fleeting visit. Yet when I met her last weekend in a Dresden hotel, she sounded as chirpy, affable and as wickedly Aberdonian as ever.

Behind the laughter, however, life has not been a bed of roses of late for Milne, 36, despite a successful career that has taken her from recent starring roles at the New York Met to last weekend's Dresden benefit concert performance of Haydn's Creation conducted by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra's new chief conductor Robin Ticciati.

Her partner is in remission after a battle against throat cancer, she revealed. Could that be why Milne's next singing engagement is a concert on 13 June at Edinburgh's Signet Library in aid of the Emer Casey Foundation which helps fund ovarian cancer research by the Dublin-based consortium Discovary?

"I don't have a specific connection with the foundation," she says. "I was asked to do this last year but wasn't free. The invitation came back this year and, given my boyfriend's situation, I jumped at the chance. I'll do anything that is close to my heart. Several of my family have passed away as a result of cancer."

The programme is tailor-made for Milne, whose voluptuous but clear-toned voice has long found its natural home in the music of Mozart and Richard Strauss. She will be accompanied by members of the SCO.

But this musical fundraiser is even more significant in marking the start of a major Scottish comeback by the international singer. Over the coming months, and well into the new concert season, she is scheduled to appear with every one of Scotland's main orchestras, in addition to an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival, and more imminently at Orkney's St Magnus Festival.

Orkney will see Milne in a very different guise from the straight-laced diva she is best known as. Yes, she will appear as "straight" soloist with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Huddersfield Choral Society in Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony (20 June). But you will also find her the next evening schmoozing in Kirkwall's Spiegeltent in gritty cabaret songs by the Belgian actor and singer Jacques Brel – a seductive side to Milne that led one critic to note the complete absence of any hint "that there might be an international soprano voice lurking in there".

"Brel is a name that has kept appearing in various ways throughout my life," she explains. "I was a huge David Bowie fan, and had a video of him singing Brel's songs at the Hammersmith Odeon. But when I bought an album eight years ago of Brel himself I got completely hooked. It's the way he interprets the French language, the way he rolls those 'r's and spits the words. I sing them in French. It wouldn't work to sing a classic like Ne me quitte pas in English. It just doesn't mean the same."

Milne views her pop diversions as vital in freeing up her ability to sing the serious stuff. "You go to a performance of Schubert's Winterreise at the Wigmore Hall and you think, well, I heard Fischer-Dieskau do it this way 30 years ago, whereas pop music doesn't come with so much interpretational baggage," she argues. "Performing it sets you free from the nervousness of having to live up to other's expectations so I can then say: 'To hell with history when it comes to my next Schubert recital – just sing it the way Kylie sings I Can't Get You Out Of My Head.'"

Look out for proof of that in Milne's Queen's Hall recital on 17 August at the Edinburgh Festival, with pianist Malcolm Martineau that features Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and 20th century Scots song writer Francis George Scott.

It may seem strange to hear an artist as successful and experienced as Milne talk of nervousness and jitters, but it is a serious issue with her. "There are times when it's just a nightmare," she says. "I actually think that if a car ran me down there and then – just injuring me enough to get out of going on stage – then that might be okay."

One thing she is confidently looking forward to is singing again in Scotland. "I've not been doing opera recently, but concentrating more on concert work which gives me the opportunity to be in places I've not been for a while," she explains. She opens the SCO season in October in Mozart's Mass in C Minor, and sings Thea Musgrave's Songs for a Winter's Evening with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in February.

Yet opera remains a fascination. "I'd love to come back to Scottish Opera, but there's no sign of that at the moment", she says. She last appeared in a title role with the company on a cloud in John La Bouchardière's extravagant 2005 production of Handel's Semele.

"Whereas before I was in demand for Mozartian roles, I'm now being asked to consider some Wagner," she says. "I have to be careful. Once I make any commitment to the heavier repertoire, there's no going back. I need to take time to make up my mind."

Don't wait too long, Lisa. The time's right to complete the homecoming. Scottish Opera, take note.

• Lisa Milne sings Mozart and Strauss in aid of the Emer Casey Foundation at the Signet Library, Edinburgh, on 13 June. Further information: www.emercaseyfoundation. com.