PAULA Sides has swapped sides of the Atlantic to develop her career as a professional opera singer.

Paula, 22, and her 28-year-old husband Rustin, from Columbus, Georgia, have settled in York, where she will take the role of Lola in York Opera's production of Cavalleria Rusticana next week at the Theatre Royal.

"I'd been studying a music degree on a scholarship at the Schwob School of Music at Columbus State University, focusing on vocal music, and when I finished last fall, I decided with my husband - it's a southern thing to marry young! - that we should move out of America to get some more experience," says soprano Paula.

"Rather than me staying in the USA to do a Masters degree, I wanted to move to England, where there are so many opera and choral societies. In the UK, it's easier to get from place to place to do performances and meet a variety of musicians."

To prove Paula's point, on her night off from Cavalleria Rusticana on Wednesday, she will be singing the principal role of Mimi in Opus 1's touring production of La Boheme in Halifax. "It's worked out marvellously that I can do both shows next week," she says.

Husband Rustin, meanwhile, has taken up a contract on this side of the Pond, working for the American information technology company TSYS. This will enable Paula to concentrate on music full time.

"I'm studying roles and working with different coaches and companies. At the moment I'm studying with Michael de Costa in York and Honor Shepherd, who teaches at the Royal Northern College in Manchester, and the Boheme production has brought me into contact with Jonathan Clift, who's a legendary director over here," says Paula.

Her first point of contact on arrival in York was Dr Peter Seymour, leading light of the University of York music department. "I arranged a meeting with him, and sang for him, and everything snowballed from there. He put me in touch with Pauline Marshall at York Opera, and I got the role of Mary in Respighi's Lauda Per la Nativata, their Christmas show at the National Centre for Early Music," says Paula.

Her love of music began in childhood and has already taken her to the heights of singing at Carnegie Hall in New York City. "My parents are very active in the church - my father is a missionary - and I sang in an Episcopal Church choir in Columbus on a scholarship (and I now attend the Rock Church in York, where I've sung jazz, show numbers, light opera, whatever)," she says.

"Singing in church got me started, and when I was at high school, at 16 I started studying classical singing and piano and I knew I never wanted to do anything else professionally."

Paula is now pursuing those ambitions in Britain, where she will perform a Summer Concert of English Music with Pauline Chadwick and Friends at Bishopthorpe Village Hall on July 5 at 7.30pm (box office 01904 490303), followed by a July 9 concert with Michael de Costa and Friends at Bolton Abbey, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Relief. This summer, she is to perform in Flatpack Music's Edinburgh Fringe show, Mozart: Whom The Gods Love at St Mark's, Castle Terrace, from August 18 to 28.

More engagements in York and beyond are sure to follow. "We've not yet decided how long we'll stay but we'd like to be here for four years, and then we're thinking of moving to the north of the USA, to Boston," Paula says. "I'm loving it here because there's such an appreciation of music."

York Opera, Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci, York Theatre Royal, June 21, 22, 24, 25, 7.15pm. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 15:35 Thursday, June 16, 2005