Soprano Elizabeth Welch sang Christine Daaé in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and was part of the company that closed the show’s record-breaking run. She knew the role well before New York: she had sung it in German, in Das Phantom der Oper, with critics praising her as “akzentfrei,” without an accent. Trained as a classical soprano at the University of Colorado and the University of Illinois, she began her opera career in Germany, singing Susanna, Despina, Adina and Olympia. Her musical theatre roles include Cosette, Belle, Anna, Marian the Librarian, and Maria in West Side Story, which won her a Denver Post Ovation Award. She is a founding board member of Broadway Hearts, which brings Broadway performances to children in hospitals. Audiences here met her in April as Julie Jordan in Carousel, A Concert.