Soprano Lauren Skuce—a fast-rising young singer who graduated from the Juilliard Opera Center last year—has a lot on her plate. In September she made her New York City Opera debut in Puccini's Suor Angelica, and is in rehearsals for their next opera in repertory, Chabrier's L'étoile. She is also preparing for her solo recital as the winner of the prestigious annual voice competition for recent Juilliard graduates, underwritten by the Alice Tully Foundation, at Alice Tully Hall. Though some might be overwhelmed by the demands on her time, energy, and artistry, Skuce isn't daunted—on the contrary, she says she's thrilled. This young artist, who has already performed at Carnegie Hall, the Opera Theater of St. Louis, Wolftrap Opera, San Francisco Opera Center, and the Marlborough Music Festival, thrives under demands and challenges, seeing them as opportunities to grow, create, and continue to prove herself—as she has repeatedly done, both at Juilliard and beyond.

Lauren Skuce created the role of Heloise for the premiere performances of Stephen Paulus’s opera Heloise and Abelard in the Juilliard Theater in April 2002. (Photo by Nan Melville)

Born in Syracuse to decidedly non-artistic parents, Skuce was always drawn to music. She sang in choirs, begged her parents for music lessons, but never even considered singing as a possible career. She spent her undergraduate years at the State University of New York at Fredonia, majoring in history and figuring she'd eventually become a teacher—until, through a string of supremely lucky events (or perhaps fate) she found herself singing at the renowned Chautauqua Institute one summer. She had no idea of the esteem of the program or what she was getting herself into—just that it was nearby: "I went in and sang my only two art songs, and had absolutely no idea what I was doing," she says. "I was terribly nervous and almost vomited afterwards." She was shocked to find herself awarded leading roles: "I had no training whatsoever; what they saw was pure, untrained talent. But they saw something."

Pursuing the connections made that summer, she arranged an audition at Juilliard, where the potential of that raw talent was recognized. "I felt so behind," she recalls. Nevertheless, Skuce thrived at Juilliard. She speaks with great warmth and gratitude of her experience: "I benefited greatly, and always enjoyed my time there," she says, adding that "the incredible faculty" were instrumental in her development as an artist. She especially credits Frank Corsaro—"one of the most amazing things about the program"—with helping her develop the passion and emotional intensity that she brings to her work.

Skuce recalls a class with Corsaro on the performance of an aria as an eye-opener, and a turning point in her development: "That class was a moment of 'Hello, people—it has to come from within!!'" As every artist knows, technique functions as a vehicle for the deeper expressions of which art is capable; without the courage to really put one's self into the music, technique is all but useless. While delving into one's soul can be frightening, she finds it the really rewarding part of singing: "It's a dangerous, yet wonderfully safe place—to really go all the way with an aria, to go somewhere sometimes frightening, to find that darkness. But once you do it, it's exhilarating. And I think that's what I really do best—go somewhere most people are uncomfortable with and then come back."

Skuce hopes that her night on the Alice Tully stage will be such a journey. As always, her performance will be more than just a treat of beautiful tones and trills; she demands more of herself and her audience. The program she is planning travels somewhere emotionally—she sees it as a progression of musical stories with a clear and involving line. And like the roles she has played-numbering among them the famously insane Ophelia of Thomas' Hamlet, the beautiful ingénue Susannah in Mozart's classic Le Nozze de Figaro, and the tragically romantic heroine of Stephen Paulus's Heloise and Abelard—the works that Skuce has selected are both extraordinarily diverse and beautifully, coherently unified.

Alice Tully Vocal Arts Debut Recital: Lauren Skuce Alice Tully Hall Thursday, Nov. 21, 8 p.m. For ticket information, please see the calendar.

"What is opera really? It's love," Skuce points out—and she wants to explore a person's journey into love as it spirals into madness, and then returns. The recital will open with a cantata of four love songs by Alessandro Scarlatti that are so brilliantly virtuosic that they sparkle, then move into the Drei Lieder der Ophelia by Richard Strauss. Returning to this character—although by a different composer—is something Skuce looks forward to. While they are the voice of madness at its height, they are still so subtle. Skuce refers to them as "psychotic masterpieces…they have a harmonic language which just tears at you." That high note of insanity will draw the recital's first half to a close. "It's risky to end that way," Skuce says, "but it's a risk we're going for. We really think that they're good pieces, that they're worthy of staying in the mind over intermission. And risk is something we want." The second half of the program will include some of Debussy's settings of poems by Paul Bourget, as well as Bruce Adolphe's explorations of mad love in a lighter sphere (including Valley girls and aliens). Four songs by Rachmaninoff "capture so well the color and flow of love and loss and are, I think, a recap of the whole evening: starting with love, going into loss, and coming back victorious," says Skuce.

"We" includes her accompanist, George François. Their collaboration is so close that the plural pronoun comes effortlessly and unthinkingly into her speech when she begins to talk of her upcoming recital. The two have been working together since 1998; they met when Skuce needed an accompanist for a project and François came in, seemingly out of nowhere, to audition—sat down, played, and took her breath away. She treasures their working relationship, describing it as the kind when two people have so much respect for one another that they can say anything. They share a meticulous concern for detail and depth, and a willingness to push themselves to higher and higher levels of artistic achievement: "We will literally explore every note, every chord, because there are always questions we haven't answered. We both want to love the music we are making."

When the two of them take the Alice Tully Hall stage on November 21, it should be a night to remember. "It is such an honor to get the chance to do a solo recital in this wonderful space," Skuce says, "really, a wonderful graduation present, to be able to give something back to Juilliard. And the song recital is an incredible medium of communication—one of speaking directly and intimately to an audience that is becoming a lost art. It's so precious, because you're there without the costumes or choreography; it's just you and the music-which makes it hard, but it's amazing and magical." Hard, maybe… but that's never stopped Skuce before.