It isn’t that many years since Margaret Cooper was studying at Headington School, singing in local choirs, taking part in the Oxford Music Festival and dreaming of opera stardom. Now, aged 27, she has a busy career on both the opera stage and the concert platform, and is looking forward to playing her first Mimi at Longborough next month. Her childhood was dominated by music — both parents are musicians (her mother still teaches piano at Headington) and she started playing the piano at the age of four. But, a few years later, singing took over.

“When I was in the junior school I started singing and realised I had quite an unusual voice, and that it was a bit different from everybody else’s,” she recalls. “I already had a bit of vibrato, which I never brought on, it just happened. Then my parents bought me a recording of Carmen for my 11th birthday, and I was enthralled. From then onwards I decided that was what I wanted to do.”

Sensibly, her parents were careful not to push her voice too early, and she didn’t start singing lessons until just before entering the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she studied music as a scholarship student at undergraduate and post-graduate level, first with Susan McCulloch and later with Raymond Connell.

Since graduating, she has notched up an impressive list of operatic roles, including Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Mercedes (Carmen), Poppea (L’Incoronazione di Poppea), Adina (L’Elisir D’Amore) and Dido (Dido and Aeneas), as well as appearing as soprano soloist in many of the great choral masterpieces.

Her career has taken her all over the UK and overseas, particularly France, Spain and Italy, and she is looking forward to working in Germany later this year. She regularly sings with Opera on the Run, First Act Opera International and Live Music Now!, the scheme founded by Yehudi Menuhin, and has taken part in masterclasses with some of the most prestigious names in opera.

But she is always happy to be back on her own turf, and has given a number of recitals at the Holywell Music Room and Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, as well as singing regularly with the Headington Singers.

Longborough, though, is a first and Margaret is greatly looking forward to the experience.

“Everything seems to be top notch there,” she enthuses. “The conductor and director are both world class, and the orchestra’s lovely. The other singers are also doing fabulous things, so it’s great to be working with them.”

Longborough’s Young Artists programme has given Margaret the opportunity to sing one of her dream role.

“I was over the moon to get Mimi,” she says. “I wouldn’t be able to sing Mimi for the top echelons for years, and I’d have to work my way up, so it’s brilliant to be able to do it now.

“Everything about the role, I feel, fits right with my voice type, and Mimi is a lovely role to play. Compared to some of the other characters I’ve played, she’s very calm and gentle. I’ve just enjoyed every minute. I cry so much sometimes when I’m preparing the music, but I get onstage and sing it, and she stays so positive all the time. I think that’s why people find it so sad, but it’s actually lovely to play. It’s only the act three when she gets distraught, and she’s in a really bad way then.

“It’s by far the best role I’ve had to work on, so for me this is a fantastic springboard. I’ve worked a lot with some of the smaller companies, but in this country there seems such a big jump, with not much in between. So companies like Longborough, if you have a Young Artists programme there, that’s fantastic.”

The production has been given a modern setting, which might disappoint traditionalists, but Margaret feels it works well.

“With Boheme, I don’t think it’s vitally important to do it in period. This production is set in an inner city — we haven’t chosen one in particular — and the idea is that we’re illegal immigrants, which is a fairly modern issue, and I think it works quite well. Maria Jagusz, the director, has kept it very simple, which is good because I think the music is so beautiful it speaks for itself.”

Beautiful music in a beautiful location — it’s the perfect combination. All it needs now is the promise of some dry weather. “Longborough’s great unless it pours with rain, because it’s got a tin roof,” chuckles Margaret, “so fingers crossed!”

lLongborough Festival Opera runs from June 10 to July 22, and includes productions of Carmen, The Marriage of Figaro and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Young Artists production of La Boheme is on July 18, 21 and 22 and is sung in Italian (not English, as stated on website). For full details, visit www.lfo.org.uk. Box office: 01451 830292 or book online.