Gelb diplomatically deflects credit for Dessay’s increased presence, noting that these appearances were booked before he took charge. But he was the one who confirmed the Met’s participation in a new coproduction of Fille by director Laurent Pelly, already staged to great acclaim in London and Vienna. Gelb also mothballed the Met’s existing production of Lucia, commissioning a new staging from award-winning theater director Mary Zimmerman (Metamorphoses).

In describing Dessay’s appeal, Gelb doesn’t mince words. “She represents everything opera should be: a perfect marriage of great musical talent and theatrical skills,” he states matter-of-factly. “Her talent is seamless in that regard, because she’s so remarkable in both ways that you don’t think about one without the other.”

If Dessay’s stratospheric voice has thus far limited her to playing ditzy coquettes and unhinged heroines, Le miracle d’une voix, a new Virgin DVD anthology of selections from her stage performances, gives the sense of a practically unlimited range, as she plumbs unsuspected depths in one role after another. The disc also includes Dessay’s account of Lucia’s mad scene from a 2002 Lyon production of the opera’s French version. Her florid voice and dramatic intensity combine in a harrowing portrait of a woman coming completely undone.

“You have to sing well, of course, because people have paid for that first,” Dessay says by phone from her home in Paris. “But my goal is to be believable not as a singer, but as an actress and as a character. My final goal would be that people could totally forget that I am singing—which is totally crazy, I know.”

Of course, opinions vary as to whether Lucia was all that stable in the first place. “I think she’s mentally fragile from the beginning,” Dessay says. “But maybe we’ll do something totally different this time. The one who will decide what she is is Mary Zimmerman. It’s not my choice, and I will do whatever she wants.”

Reconsidering familiar roles under the guidance of a director with strong ideas, Dessay explains, is one of the most interesting aspects of her job. “I don’t know how she works—if she wants me to improvise at the beginning, if she wants me to propose many things, if she already has a precise idea of what she wants,” Dessay says. “I’m open to what she needs and wants from me. I’m only like a material for her, and she has to use me as she wants.”

If forging a new working relationship is part of the appeal in Lucia, Dessay is just as enthusiastic about reuniting with trusted collaborators in Fille. “This production is really something special,” she says. “I can’t imagine anything better for this opera, which is not such a good one.”

Say what?

“The story is a bit silly,” Dessay replies. “The characters are a bit boring. And Laurent Pelly did something very original and very funny with all that.” Gusty laughter accompanies her appreciation of her comely leading man, Flórez. “We need the whole audience to be in love as soon as he appears,” she says. “And it’s not difficult with such a boy!”

Dessay’s future Met assignments include a new Zimmerman staging of Bellini’s La Sonnambula in 2008–09, and a Geneva Opera production of Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet in 2009–10. Slowly and cautiously, she plans to push ahead into deeper waters, such as La Traviata. “My next goal is Violetta, even if it’s the extreme limit of my voice,” she says. “The character is so interesting, and the music is so rich, that I really want to go there before I retire. I can’t imagine myself doing Juliette at 50.”

Lucia di Lammermoor opens at the Metropolitan Opera Sept 24.