As the line snakes nearly out the door at the Starbucks at Fourth and Vine downtown, coffee lovers get more than a mouthful some mornings.

        They get an earful.

        Sleepy-eyed and waiting for their morning brew, customers pop their eyes wide open at the sound of a belting barista.

        “CaFE MOcha with Skiiiiiiim!” they hear.

Opera singer Elizabeth Saunders, holding two pitchers of milk, makes orders musical at Starbucks. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

        That must have been a recording, they say. Maybe a CD? It sure was loud. By now the coffee lovers are moving closer to the counter, nudging their co-workers and trying to get a closer look.

        Yes, those legato notes are coming from the mouth of a real opera singer, Elizabeth Saunders. And she's singing your morning order.

        “The first time it was a surprise,” said Karen Davis, a regular at the Starbucks in downtown Cincinnati. “I don't know if I thought it was a recording or not but I looked over and she was standing there.

        “She would just sing out. When she went to Europe it wasn't the same. I'd get, "Here's your coffee.'”

        Ms. Saunders, 30, of Clifton is gaining a coffee house audience and a kind of popularity as the singing coffee lady. The mezzo-soprano knows her customers by their orders.

        And sometimes she even sings made-up songs to them. English, French, Italian, German, they're all in her repertoire.

        Singing orders came out of necessity, she said. The professional opera singer said a year ago when she started working for Starbucks she noticed yelling out orders strained her voice.

        So she asked the manager if she could sing them. Sure, he said. And so the performances began.

        “Now there's customers who come in and they sing to me,” she said. “It's sort of taken off. It's really a hoot.”

        When she's not traveling the world to play the sensuous gypsy in Georges Bizet's Carmen or following the instructions of famous director Julius Rudel, she's a part-time barista. It helps keep her on a semi-regular schedule, she says, and allows her to have employee benefits with the coffee company.

        At the end of the summer, though, the woman who got her degree at the University of Southern California and trained at UC's College-Conservatory of Music, is moving to New York.

        It's time, she said. More exposure means more roles.

        “A lot of people come in and say, "Whatever you do, don't keep your day job,'” she said.
       

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