Initially, she was captivated by dreams of becoming a famous pop singer and then, aged 14, she saw her first opera, La Traviata, sung in Albanian at Tirana’s National Theatre.

“It was love at first sight even after the overture,” she says. “Oh, my god, I loved it! I loved it! At the end of it I told my brother that in the future I would become an opera singer and that I will not die without singing Traviata once in my life.”

In the intervening years, Violetta, the doomed heroine in Verdi’s opera, has become Jaho’s best-loved role.

“Ten days ago I sang my Violetta number 306 at the [New York] Metropolitan,” she says proudly. “I am counting them because it’s bringing me to my dream.”

Jaho was 17 when she came to the attention of legendary Italian soprano Katia Ricciarelli, who invited her to study at her academy in the north of the country. After that, she continued her music studies for five years in Rome.

And then, in 2008, a relatively unknown Jaho replaced an indisposed Anna Netrebko at excruciatingly short notice to sing Violetta at London’s Covent Garden.

With only a brief technical rehearsal in a studio and no chance even to meet the other performers she waited behind the curtain on the storied stage to hear the announcement that Netrebko had been taken ill and she would be singing instead opposite the legendary Jonas Kaufmann and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

“No one heard about me at that time and they are booing without me even opening my mouth,” she says. “Could you imagine what’s coming up? But then in my mind I went back to Ermonela when she was 14 years old and the whole story came to me and I thought, let’s see what you can do.”

After a shaky start, the 2000-strong capacity audience warmed to Jaho and the theatre stood when she took her bows.

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“It was a success,” she says. “And after that I went back twice a year.”

On Monday, when Jaho returns to the Sydney Opera House for the first of seven performances of Adriana Lecouvreur, audiences can be assured that, as always, she will leave nothing on the stage.

“I go on stage like it’s the first time and last time of my life,” she says. “And every time I leave I kiss the stage because I don’t know if I am coming back tomorrow.”