SHE can look like Morticia from The Addams Family, made her debut in Transylvania, won't let direct sunlight touch her skin and has been nicknamed Draculette. Yet she wears a gold crucifix around her neck, has a passion for old Romanian churches and Orthodox church music, and a voice that most angels would give their wings for. And the temperament of the very devil.

Superficial contradictions swirl around the exotic Angela Gheorghiu, who is appearing in a new sell-out production of Tosca at London's Royal Opera House, with Bryn Terfel as Scarpia and the Argentinian tenor Marcelo Alvarez as Cavaradossi.

Alongside a voice that has made great conductors weep in wonder is a reputation that could earn respect from another Soprano: tough guy Tony. So fractious has been her relationship with a world renowned for the tantrums of its drama queens that Jonathan Miller, the director, famously dubbed Gheorghiu and her husband "the Bonnie and Clyde of opera".

Yet so striking are her thick mane of raven hair, curvaceous body and flashing dark eyes that she is the only 40-year-old opera singer to make it into a lads mag's list of top 100 best-looking women: FHM readers put her atNo.74.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19521524-16947,00.html