LONDON -- Deborah Voigt is back, in black.

The American soprano has returned to the Royal Opera House stage four years after the company fired her for being too big for the little black dress chosen for the title character in Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. The decision sparked a fierce debate about weight discrimination in opera.

Now a slimmer Voigt is back in the same opera, the same role -- and wearing ''that'' dress. The New York Times reported that in her Monday return to the Royal Opera House stage, ``Ms. Voigt looked elegant and sounded in fine form. . . .''

''When I got the call from my manager, I have to admit my first reaction was to laugh, because we had come full circle,'' Voigt says. ``When that happened, I didn't anticipate ever coming back, because I didn't think they would invite me.''

One of the world's leading opera singers, Voigt had been scheduled to play the lead in the Royal Opera's summer 2004 production of Ariadne. But the casting director decided the titular Greek goddess should wear a black cocktail dress and believed Voigt would not look right in it.

''I was angry about it at the time and for quite a while afterwards,'' says Voigt, who once called the attitude toward overweight people ``the last bastion of open discrimination in our society.''

However, Voigt had gastric bypass surgery in June 2004, three months after the story broke and subsequently lost 135 pounds. She says she had been considering the surgery on health grounds for years, long before the black-dress incident.

''I didn't need the Royal Opera House to tell me I was fat,'' Voigt says. ``I knew I was fat.''

She now concedes she wouldn't have been right for the 2004 production and thinks opera's increased focus on image is here to stay.

''I think that the face of opera is changing,'' Voigt says. ``To assume that one can weigh 300-plus pounds and still be viable on today's opera stage is naive. I tell that to young singers.

``Opera has changed immensely in my generation, and it is going to change more.''

REHIRED

In 2006, the Royal Opera rehired Voigt, announcing she would return to the role of Ariadne in the 2007-2008 season. Beyond that, the company had refused to discuss the incident, saying only that recent rehearsals had gone well.

The ebullient Voigt seems to have put the episode squarely behind her. She has nothing but praise for her ''warm and welcoming'' reception by the company and has poked fun at the furor by releasing a YouTube video titled The Return of the Little Black Dress, in which she and her slinky nemesis make up.

''It just seemed at the time that we weren't a good fit,'' the dress tells the now-svelte singer in the clip. ``But times change; people change.''

Voigt said in 2004 that she didn't expect to be allowed to sing at the Royal Opera House as long as casting director Peter Katona remained. He's still there, and the two have reconciled.

''I remember that Mr. Katona said some day we would be able to laugh about this,'' Voigt says. 'And I said, `Yeah, right.' But he was right.

``There is no point walking around with a chip on your shoulder about it. Life's too short.''

GOING STRONG

Voigt is 47, but her career is going strong. Some critics have detected changes to her voice as a result of the weight loss, suggesting it is slightly thinner and less warm.

Others find it as mesmerizing as ever. One reviewer thought Voigt's recent performance in Tristan und Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera was majestic: ``Her voice has lyric beauty as well as steel.''

Voigt acknowledges that her shrinking silhouette has has been an adjustment.

''The whole process of learning to sing with a different physique has taken a lot longer than I thought it would,'' she says. ``Four years on, I am still having to rethink how I sing.

``People might say the voice is more silver than gold as it used to be. It's not for me to say. I am enjoying performing a lot more than I was.''

In 2011, Voigt is to sing Bruennhilde in the Met's much-anticipated new Ring Cycle. Since her surgery she has expanded her repertoire, playing biblical temptress Salome and legendary beauty Helen of Troy.

''It's nice to be able to play the pretty-girl parts,'' Voigt says.

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