- [Announcer] In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music, WHYY presents the following program.

(gentle music) ♪ C is for cookie, that's good enough for me ♪ ♪ C is for cookie, that's good enough for me ♪ - [Ruby] I saw... A rerun of Sesame Street with Marilyn Horne singing "C is for Cookie," and she was like spread out on a chaise with a bunch of people like fanning her and her like viking helmet, and just like singing "C is for Cookie" in like the best operatic voice she could muster for like that Sesame Street song.

I think that's where I first saw opera.

- [Woman] To perform her own original composition, Miss Rubana.

- When I was like two or three, I was harmonizing in my parents' basement in my dad's like record cave.

♪ A, B, C, D ♪ ♪ E, F, G ♪ And I started like trying to sing like the ABC opera around my house, like shaking my voice, trying to sound like I had vibrato.

♪ W, X ♪ ♪ Y and Z ♪ I always sang as a kid, as my like, answer to what do you want to be when you grow up?

(people cheering) I really... Decided that like I wanted to do it, and that there was, I wanted to be a singer and there was no other...

Choice for me but to like follow that dream probably when I was about 12.

I just really like being able to participate in telling stories and like making people feel something.

What's most important to me is if I can make somebody feel like alive or feel electric or inspired or make someone cry or just feel what it is to feel their emotions.

If I can be vulnerable on stage with my voice and with my acting, my hope is that I can make other people vulnerable, like experiencing it as well.

This piece is called "Va!

Laisse couler mes larmes," from Massenet's "Werther," and plain and simply, it's a song about heartbreak, and the character I'm singing is Charlotte, and she's talking to her younger sister and she is trying to explain to her younger sister just like how broken-hearted she is that Werther doesn't want her, or that she's been rejected or that it's not gonna to work out.

And she's trying to be a good model for her younger sister of saying like, don't stifle your feelings.

Don't stifle your tears.

She's saying go, let my tears flow.

And then she starts to say that, you know, there is a hole so big in her heart that nothing can fill it.

It shows off the mezzo soprano voice so well that it is a certain staple in the operatic repertoire.

(singing in foreign language) I am very...

Particular about the way that I want to be, the way that I want my singing to be like.

I pride myself on like being a perfectionist in that way, but it's been a big learning process, especially in this year of not performing and not being in control.

I love to go hiking.

I'm so close to the Smoky Mountains, and it's like the base of the Appalachian Trail.

Get on some beautiful trails and get out in nature, not knowing which way that opera is gonna be for the future.

It's taught me a lot about kind of letting go, about control.

When I first got the list of what we would all be singing for Opera On Demand, I was like, "Anna Bolena?"

What?

What is... No, no, I can't.

It can't be me doing that, 'cause it's big, you know, it's big and it's hard, and it's bel canto, which is a type of like singing and a type of repertoire that I hadn't yet really dipped my toes into.

I was terrified of how we were gonna put this together with a green screen and how we were gonna set up our lights and our cameras.

It was a real challenge, vocally, mentally.

(both singing) Curtis is all about learn by doing, and we did it ourselves.

(gentle music) My character's having to come to Anne Boleyn and say, "you're probably gonna die.

You should probably just plead guilty to Henry VIII, even though you're not guilty.

Also, by the way, I slept with your husband and he loves me and he's leaving you for me and that's probably why you're gonna die."

It's very hard to be like, okay, and go, you know.

Without being there for the entirety of the show and then also doing it to like a wall was really, it was a challenge for sure.

(gentle music) (singing in foreign language) - Olivia Larson's "Love After 1950," which was originally premiered by one of my favorite mezzo sopranos, Suzanne Menser.

"Love After 1950" is a set written by a living female composer and taken from all female poets.

It is really a piece written by women for women.

- So this song is "Big Sister Says," 1967 from Libby Larsen's song cycle, "Love After 1950."

It's set in the style of a honky-tonk, so the piano is very loud and heavy-handed, it's sort of supposed to sound as if it's a piano in an old honky-tonk bar.

♪ Beauty hurts ♪ (dramatic piano music) ♪ Beauty hurts ♪ ♪ Big sister says beauty hurts ♪ ♪ Yanking a hank of my lanky hair ♪ ♪ Yanking a hank of my lanky hair ♪ ♪ Yanking a hank of my lanky hair ♪ ♪ Around black wire-mesh rollers ♪ ♪ Whose inside bristles ♪ ♪ Prick my scalp like so many pins ♪ ♪ Beauty hurts ♪ ♪ Big sister says beauty hurts ♪ ♪ She says I better sleep with them in ♪ ♪ She plucks, tweezes ♪ ♪ Glides razor blades ♪ ♪ Over tender ♪ ♪ Armpit skin ♪ ♪ Slathers downy legs ♪ ♪ With stinking depilatory cream ♪ ♪ Presses straight lashes ♪ ♪ Bolt upright ♪ ♪ With a medieval-looking padded clamp ♪ ♪ Looking good hurts ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ It hurts ♪ ♪ Looking good hurts, Beryl warns ♪ ♪ It's hard work ♪ ♪ She plucks, tweezes ♪ ♪ Glides razor blades over tender armpit skin ♪ ♪ She plucks, tweezes ♪ ♪ Presses straight lashes bolt upright ♪ ♪ Beauty hurts ♪ ♪ Looking good hurts ♪ ♪ Rollers, tweezers, razor blades ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Beauty ♪ ♪ Hurts ♪ This is "Wie Du warst!"

from Ricard Strauss, "Der Rosenkavalier."

And it is one of my favorite arias to sing.

And I have been working on it for quite some time.

(singing in foreign language)