A distinctly strange-looking character features among the customers of the Café Momus in Paris. He appears to be a very large monkey dressed in a bright-checked suit. Meet toy-seller Parpignol, who existed in real life, and was immortalised by Puccini in his much-loved opera La bohème. Now director Annabel Arden and designer Stephen Brimson Lewis have graphically recreated Parpignol for their new Welsh National Opera production of Bohème, which arrives at the New Theatre next Thursday. But wouldn’t potential young customers be scared off by a toy seller dressed as a giant monkey? Or would they actually be attracted by this strange apparition? I’d love to ask the lively school parties who are touring round the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff as I meet up with the singer playing Parpignol, WNO senior chorus member Michael Clifton-Thompson. But, alas, Mike is not in costume, and neither of us gets a second glance. What, I ask Mike, was his reaction when he first saw his monkey face staring back at him from the mirror?

“Surprise. I think the main thing was seeing the blue eyes coming out of the mask, which sort of humanised it in some way. Also, the fact that the mask moved with my face, so I could portray all the necessary emotions, and they would actually be returned to me via the mask.

“The make-up job takes 45 or 50 minutes. Two girls put on the mask, and it’s glued all around my face, so it can move: it’s a very light, synthetic substance. “There’s a wig and facial hair to go on as well, plus a fat suit, which bulks me up to the equivalent of 20-odd stone. Then there’s the three-piece suit on top, plus some rather odd shoes that look a bit like leathery feet. I tend to make monkey noises at the make-up assistants when they’re halfway through, and they jump out of their skins – I do it just as they’re doing the delicate bits. There’s a lot of laughter.”

But the whole ensemble does look as if it might feel hot when subjected to the full force of stage lighting...

“It’s like being in a pressure cooker! I drink a couple of litres of water when I’m on and around the stage. When I take the costume off, I’ve got a T-shirt on underneath and it’s absolutely saturated.”

It has long been WNO’s custom to assign cameo roles to chorus members, and they have been required to wear some pretty way-out costumes along the way. Mike joined the chorus in 1985: I ask him for his most alarming sartorial memories.

“I remember in Comte Ory [the Rossini opera] I had to wear knee-length leather boots and a leather jockstrap – nothing else. I was a bit worried about that, especially in one scene when I had to be a prisoner chained to a wall. “Everybody on stage had to go past me, and of course I couldn’t move my hands. There was plenty going on there! I also had to put a pair of wings on and fly down on to the stage in that production. Then there was being turned into a skeleton in Queen of Spades – that was very eerie.”