By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — Her voice surging through the lofty space of the Westport Library’s atrium Thursday, actress Kelli O’Hara, known best for leading roles on Broadway, showed her talents soar to operatic heights. 

Theater fans were star-struck as O’Hara treated the audience at the annual Malloy Lecture in the Arts to performances of “A Cock-Eyed Optimist” from “South Pacific” and “How to Build A Home” from “The Bridges of Madison County.” 

But it was her rendition of an opera aria that really shook the rafters.

The audience, attending the event both in person and virtually, got a double dose of Broadway fame with Bartlett Sher — director of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Oslo” and “The King and I” — interviewing O’Hara, a town resident.

“There’s something magical about the human voice,” particularly O’Hara’s voice, Sher noted. “There are very few people in the universe who can sing in musicals, do opera and television,” he said.

O’Hara, a native of Elk City, Okla., promised herself when only five years old that some day she would study voice with Florence Birdwell, who became her teacher and friend, and the mentor to many Broadway stars. 

Arriving in New York City in 1998, O’Hara began a career that ultimately has led to seven Tony Award nominations and a Tony win for Best Actress in a Musical for a revival of “The King and I.”

O’Hara took a step off Broadway when she performed in several opera productions. “She decided for some reason to sing in the Metropolitan Opera … one of the hardest places to sing in the world,” Sher said. 

But for O’Hara, singing opera was a way to progress professionally and grow. She called it important “to challenge myself … to jump off a cliff once in a while,” by performing at the Met. And she demonstrated her operatic skills Thursday by singing a piece by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti for the library audience.

During the program, Sher asked O’Hara all kinds of questions, including what it was like for her to raise young children while performing on Broadway. 

O’Hara played the lead role of Nellie Forbush in South Pacific when she was six months pregnant with her first child, she said. “I did cartwheels in a bathing suit with a baby in my belly.” And she also worked when pregnant with her second child. “I did shows when pregnant,” the actress said of that show-must-go-on spirit. ”I feel proud of that now.”

Both O’Hara and Sher agreed the pandemic has had a far-reaching impact on the New York theater scene, including closing down Broadway theaters for over a year. But the recent re-opening of ‘The Great White Way” is an opportunity for a new beginning, they noted. “It’s an exciting time in theater,” Sher said.

“It’s a real responsibility, but also an opportunity to tell different stories,” O’Hara added.

“Now I want to have a voice in the stories I’m telling.”