AT the age of six, theatre producer Ellen Kent stood up on the back seat of the family Morris Minor and proclaimed she was going to be a film star. While life may not have panned out quite how the young Ellen had predicted, the theatre impresario, who has been responsible for bringing Eastern European opera to more than 3.2 million people in the UK has no regrets, telling me: “Ellen Kent has been the biggest part I have ever played”.

Now aged 60, Ellen, who was raised in Bombay before going to boarding school in Suffolk, has sent ripples through the world of stage with her decision to retire from touring 17 years after founding Ellen Kent Opera & Ballet International. During her career, she redefined opera with her larger-than-life productions, featuring everything from live falcons to Ukrainian strippers.

“It’s sad to say farewell. It always is, you can’t pretend it’s not,” she says, “and believe me it came as a complete shock when I reached this decision, but it wasn’t a decision I reached lightly. I have been thinking about it since last summer. I was sitting in 45ºC heat in Modiva directing five operas for the market in Britain and I thought, I’m tired, I can’t keep up this pace forever.”

Reflecting further, she adds: “It has been the most stressful but wonderful experience. I have had 17 years of high adventure, but I had got to the point of that slightly weary feeling. Now the idea is to just relax a bit more and cherry pick what I want to direct.”

While relaxing will take the form of a “grand design project” on the new 13-acre estate she has acquired in Canterbury, Kent, her cherry picking looks set to be “huge outdoor productions” in Egypt, Athens, Turkey and Verona. Commenting on her ambitious plans, she jokes: “I know it’s not the right economical climate to think big, but I can’t change the habit of a lifetime.”

True to form, Ellen’s farewell touring production of Verdi’s Aida, which arrives at the Hackney Empire on Sunday, is as big and bold as we have come to expect.

Staged in a massive amphitheatre set, designed to mimic the grandeur of the Colosseum of Rome and performed by the Chisinau National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Verdi’s tragic love story will be brought to life with “eight-foot high Anubis statues, fabulous costumes, walls of fire and gold coins sprinkling down”.

“Aida is a great production to end on,” she adds. “It’s a massive opera and I have tried to emulate that massive feel.”

And as for that massive legacy she will be leaving behind?

“My legacy will be to have opened up opera to the whole of the UK," she offers. “From Grimsby to Limerick, from Hackney to the Albert Hall, you name me a place and I will have gone there.”

Verdi’s Aida arrives at Hackney Empire on Sunday, May 3, 7.30pm. Tickets: 020 8985 2424 or www.hackneyempire.co.uk (£12-£29.50)