We have cricket. We have strawberries and cream. And we have the English soprano. She’s a rare breed, but instantly recognisable: aristocratic bearing, a golden, elegant voice, an eye for textual detail and a magnetic stage presence.

Kate Royal fits the bill perfectly. Her Countess for Glyndebourne on Tour’s production of The Marriage of Figaro last year was perfectly poised between tears and laughter. The character’s first aria, Porgi Amor, is a notoriously difficult entrance for the unwary soprano, but Royal sailed through with assurance. But Guildhall and the National Opera Studio have already left their mark, and the result is a near-complete artist. In November she sang French mélodies and German lieder with equal assurance at the Wigmore Hall. At the Edinburgh Festival she wowed us with Mozart’s little-known opera Zaide. Does Covent Garden beckon? You bet — she’s already down to appear at the Royal Opera House in a 2007 revival of Thomas Adès’s The Tempest. Before then you can see her as Helena in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Glyndebourne.

Artists like Royal don’t come along very often. An obvious comparison is Dame Felicity Lott — another refined diva at home in both opera and recital. But, after her extraordinary year — and aged just 26 — Kate Royal is already in a class of her own.