Larger-than-life opera producer Ellen Kent is talking nineteen to the dozen about Roman-style amphitheatres, performing Lipizzaner Stallions and the theatrical potential of the Greek myths.

But then she's just moved house and, unlike most of us whose ambitions don't extend beyond a new bathroom suite at times like these, she's happily sharing the plans she has for her garden.

It's no ordinary house, of course. It was built by the architect son of Heart of Darkness novelist Joseph Conrad.

And it's no ordinary garden either - it extends to a dozen or so acres and contains its own natural chalk quarry.

Perfect, she says, for an amphitheatre: "My own miniature colosseum.

"It would be wonderful to hold marvellously elegant soirees," announces Ellen.

She suddenly realises that she has veered off the original subject - her latest touring operas Madama Butterfly and La Traviata, which arrive at Bournemouth's Pavilion Theatre this weekend.

"Oh dear, I'm sure I'm going more bonkers by the minute," she says.

So to the matter in hand. Butterfly arrives first, playing the Pavilion on Saturday. Perennially popular and based on a true-life story, it tells of an innocent geisha girl who falls for an American sailor.

Puccini's tear-jerker was the original inspiration for the popular West End musical Miss Saigon. Kent has signed up brilliant young Korean soprano, Elena Dee, for the notoriously taxing central role of Cio-Cio San.

Real-life events also lie behind Verdi's semi-biographical La Traviata, which plays the Pavilion on Sunday.

It focuses on the love and life of the passionate courtesan Violetta.

7:00pm Friday 9th May 2008

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