She's Welsh. She sings. And she's just signed the biggest deal in classical music history. But she isn't Charlotte Church. Meet Katherine Jenkins

There are many things bubbling under the surface, such as a fullblown cold (the symptoms, a sore throat and headache, have begun) and the unresolved matter of FHM magazine offering her its cover; a spot usually graced by an actress/singer/model with a bikini and an unnatural pose. When I ask if she plans to do it, she laughs dryly. "They did call my record company and said they wanted me to do a front cover, but I wouldn't do a bikini - my mum would kill me, " she says, herWelsh accent intact even after several years in London. "I did say I'd be interested in doing something as long as I could wear one of my sexier dresses. They are still talking, so you never know."

I tell her that male fans have been discussing the offer on the forum of her website. The debate began when one tentatively asked others whether they also felt the idea of Jenkins posing in FHM was wrong for her.

Several replied most earnestly that, while she was certainly attractive enough, the enquiring fan was right to take this view. If Jenkins's mother didn't kill her for stripping off, it appears her fans might. "They are (protective), " she says. "It's very nice."

Part of the reason for the fans' fear that Jenkins will be corrupted, for this is what they seem to want to protect her against, is her age:

she's 24. The other part is, probably, the precedent set by Charlotte Church (more of whom later).

However, it's worth setting these concerns in the context of the popularisation of some sectors of the classical music industry.

Jenkins acknowledges that artists such as Vanessa Mae paved the way for her and that the business is increasingly about image.

Indeed, after she won her first record contract - a six-album deal with Universal Classics, no less - she was given advice on the industry by her boyfriend, Steve Hart, a songwriter who achieved fame in the 1990s with a boy-band, Worlds Apart.

"In some ways (the classical music industry) is becoming like the pop industry, " says Jenkins.

"When I started out, I wanted to cross over in terms of wider appeal.

Even a year ago, people were saying to me, 'I thought you had to be 25 stone to be an opera singer' and stuff like that, which I think has been broken down.

"I want people to realise opera isn't just for posh people, you know, but I hope it doesn't go as far where image is more important than the music."

Nor interviews, though Jenkins has been doing plenty over the past year or so, and certainly enough to rattle her biography off pat. "I've been singing since I was four.

There was a talent competition in school and I heard about it, " she says. "I remember running out of the school gates saying, 'mum, you've got to teach me a song!' She taught me a song called Going Down the Garden to Eat Worms, which was a lovely song for a four-year-old to sing.

That was my first try, then I joined my church choir when I was seven and was very fortunate to join a really good standard of choir."

There followed a Welsh singing competition when she was 10.

She won and was then able to join several other choirs. Another turning point came with a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, which was, of course, notable for the thorough training it gave Jenkins in Italian, French, German and Russian, as well as an opportunity to play Dorabella in Cosi fan Tutti and the title role in Carmen. It also provided, however, the backdrop to a more fundamental change. The girl from Neath, South Wales, who had spent most of her childhood and adolescence singing in choirs, met a worldly pop star at a party.

Hart is credited with awakening Jenkins's inner glamour-puss, presenting her as a "popera" opportunity for Universal after she sent them a demo. She has another four albums to make on her current contract with the label, with the next due to be recorded over the summer and released in the autumn. While her debut album, Premiere, stuck to traditional fare, and its followup blended traditional with modern, Jenkins plans to go a step further with the next. "I would like to put some new material on there, so, maybe some more popular classical things, " she says.

"Not pop, but newly-written stuff."

Coincidentally, Hart has begun writing songs for classical singers, though it's not clear he'll contribute to any of Jenkins's albums:

his role appears to be more in background support. The other source of support for Jenkins is her mother, Susan, a mammographer, who encouraged her to join choirs and entered her daughter in a Face of Wales modelling competition. Upon becoming a finalist, Jenkins was able to support herself with part-time modelling while at university.

Her father, Selwyn, a factory worker, died of cancer when Jenkins was a teenager. She says she always "has a word" with him before a performance.

It's important to Jenkins that people know her background. "I hope people can identify with me because I come from a normal background in Wales. I hope it makes (the music) more accessible, " she says. Of course, Charlotte Church has also made progress in this sense, and has also shown that choir girls aren't all goody-goody teetotallers. The apparent rivalry between Church and Jenkins appears to be nothing more than an accident of birth and vocation as interpreted by the tabloids.

"I keep saying the same thing, " laughs Jenkins. "I don't think we're arch enemies. I've only met her once and that was really brief ly at the tsunami concert. I didn't have time to say anything other than hello. I haven't got anything bad to say about her. She seemed very nice and I respect the success she's had."

However, Jenkins does appear to pass indirect comment on how Church has managed that success.

"I'm really grateful that this has happened to me at this stage because I can appreciate it, " she says, being a few years older than Church. "I've got friends who were in my class at college and some of them are really struggling now. It's really hard for musicians when they start out, so, I can appreciate I'm in a really fortunate position. I wouldn't want to take it for granted."

She does appear to appreciate her good fortune. Luck comes up several times in our conversation;

she feels lucky that her album was the best-selling classical album last year, that singing is her job, that she travels and meets interesting people. It betrays her ambition, for she is ambitious. A few years ago, she set herself three lifetime ambitions: to sing at the Millennium Stadium and Sydney Opera House and have a record reach No 1 in the classical charts. Last year, she achieved all three and has had to set herself some new goals.

"I'd love to play Carmen, " she says. "I'd love to combine a recording contract with full-scale performances when I'm a bit older - about 30. Sometime in the future, I'd love to win a Brit award, a classical one, not a pop one."

Is there any chance of doing that at the forthcoming awards?

"I would think my album would be, you know, up to be nominated, but I've no idea, " she says, suddenly a bit flustered. "Even if they were nominated I would be just over the moon. We'll see. I think they announce the nominations in April and the awards are held at the Royal Albert Hall. Maybe not these albums, maybe albums in the future, but I'm too nervous to speak about that."

Now, that's just the ordinary Welsh girl.