I’m in a modest, modern house in the suburbs of Mansfield and I’m being offered a Tunnock’s teacake. Of all the stars I’ve interviewed, it’s a first – but this is a hospitable, half-Italian household, the childhood home of 27-year-old mezzo-soprano Carly Paoli, who has just returned from performing at the Forum in Rome with world-famous tenor Andrea Bocelli.
You’d expect an opera singer to be holed up in a palazzo somewhere hot, not in a front room with swirly carpet. There are lots of photos of her elder brother, Dean, a builder, yet I can’t spot one of Carly – not even a memento of her appearance on stage with Spanish tenor José Carreras.
But this is a mega-proud household: Mum and dad (Tina and Paul Hopkinson) positively swell to twice their normal size when Carly – a denim skirt cinching her handspan waist, a pink Karen Millen biker jacket over her shoulders – brings me a cup of coffee.